THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 

OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 


THE  MENACE  OF  THE  MOB 


"        ^'  '■' '     ^ 

if 

DMITRI    MEREJKOVSKI 


The  Menace  of  the  Mob 

By 

DMITRI  MEREJKOVSKI 


Translated  from  the  Russian 
By 

BERNARD  GUILBERT   GUERNET 


NICHOLAS  L.  BROWN 

NEW  YORK  MCMXXI 


Copyright,  1921 

BY 

NICHOLAS  L.  BROWN 


•'.o  ^- 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

The  Menace  of  the  Mob 19 

The  Blossoms  of  Bourgeoisie 85 

When  Christ  Shall  Rise  Again 103 


<f^oor>,a  «t> 


INTRODUCTION 


INTRODUCTION 

To  say  that  the  world  to-day  is  passing  through 
the  most  crucial  period  of  all  history  is,  of  course, 
a  commonplace;  but  the  fact  will,  none  the  less, 
bear  constant  reiteration. 

Everything  is  seething  and  in  a  turmoil;  there 
are  wars  and  rumors  of  wars;  the  world  is  ill  and 
bewildered.  Yet,  though  there  are  many  men  cry- 
ing in  this  wilderness — how  many  are  there  who 
are  true  prophets;  and  how  many  of  these  are  not 
merely  crying,  but  also  pointing  a  way  out  of  the 
wilderness? 

It  is  little  short  of  astonishing  to  see  how  many 
of  the  warnings  in  The  Menace  of  the  Mob  have 
come  true.  There  is  scarce  a  line  where  a  pin 
would  not  prick  upon  a  prophecy  fulfilled.  And, 
were  we  to  use  it  as  a  volume  for  sortes — there  is 
scarce  a  line  that  is  not  pregnant  with  other  fore- 
warnings,  still  more  dire.  "There  shall  be  a 
slaughter  the  like  of  which  has  never  been  before" 
— to  which  the  Great  World  War  is,  perhaps,  as 
but  the  blossom  to  the  fruit. 

\  Kuprin,  in  one  of  his  impressionistic  sketches, 

9 


10  INTRODUCTION 

describes  a  rural  school  recitation  of  the  fable  of 
the  grasshopper  and  the  ant.     He  writes: 

"An  oppressive,  sad,  and  fearful  thought  seemed 
to  unfold  itself  in  my  mind.  'Here,'  I  thought, 
'stand  we,  a  small  group  of  intelligents,  face  to 
face  with  a  numberless  people,  the  most  enig- 
matic, the  greatest  and  the  most  oppressed  on  earth. 
What  binds  us  to  them?  Nothing.  Neither 
tongue,  nor  faith,  nor  work,  nor  art.  Our  poetry 
is  laughable  to  them,  as  nonsensical  and  incompre- 
hensible as  to  a  child.  Our  refined  painting  is  to 
them  a  useless  and  undecipherable  daubing.  Our 
search  for  a  God  and  our  creation  of  a  God  is 
sheer  raving  to  them  who  believe  equally  holily  in 
a  calendar  saint  and  in  the  hobgoblin  who  lives  in 
the  bath-house.  Our  music  seems  dreary  noise  to 
them.  Our  science  is  insufficient  for  them.  Our 
complicated  labor  is  ludicrous  and  pitiful  to  them, 
so  wise,  patient,  and  simple  is  the  cruel  face  of 
nature  to  the  tiller.  Yes — on  the  terrible  day  of 
reckoning,  what  shall  we  say  to  this  infant  and 
beast,  this  sage  and  animal,  this  giant  numbering 
many  millions?  Nothing.  We  shall  say:  'We 
sang  the  summer  through,'  and  they  will  answer, 
with  the  cunning  smile  of  the  peasant:  'Then  go 
and  dance  a  bit.  .  .  .' ' 

Has  the  terrible  day  of  reckoning  come?     Just 


INTRODUCTION  11 

as  the  above  gives  us  a  picture  of  the  position  of 
the  cultured  classes — not  only  in  Russia,  but 
throughout  the  world — helpless  before  the  turbu- 
lent masses,  so  every  forewarning  of  Merejkovski's 
applies  not  only  to  Russia,  but  to  all  the  world. 

Dmitri  Sergeivitch  Merejkovski  was  bom  August 
14,  1865,  on  one  of  the  small  islands  near  St. 
Petersburg.  He  was  the  youngest  son  of  Sergeii 
Ivanovitch  Merejkovski,  and  Varvara  Vasilievna, 
nee  Chestrokova.  He  had  three  sisters  and  five 
brothers,  and  was  his  mother's  favorite  son ;  writing 
of  his  mother,  he  acknowledges  that  "if  there  is 
any  good  in  me,  I  have  her  to  thank  for  it."  His 
father,  however,  was  very  stern;  and  later  on,  when 
he  speaks  of  his  education,  he  plainly  states  that 
he  owes  as  little  to  his  schooling  as  to  his  father. 
When  his  brother  Constantin  proved  to  be  a  nihilist, 
the  father,  who  considered  nihilists  as  not  even 
human  beings  (Unmenschen) ,  drove  him  out  of 
the  house,  despite  the  mother's  pleading. 

The  melancholy  pervading  the  old  marshy  park 
with  its  wooded  parts,  its  ponds,  and  the  view  of 
the  sea,  could  not  but  exert  its  influence  upon  his 
childhood — he  tells  us  that  he  was  shy  and  secre- 
tive as  a  school-boy;  nor  must  we  forget  "the  holy 
legends  and  folk-tales"  of  his  old  nurse — even  be- 
fore thirteen  he  was  full  of  mysticism,  and  wrote 


12  INTRODUCTION 

poetry.  His  first  critical  effort  was  written  also 
at  about  the  same  age. 

And  it  is  significant  that,  as  a  child,  his  winters 
were  spent  in  an  old  house  built  at  the  time  of  Peter 
the  Great,  and  within  sight  of  his  palace,  his  hut, 
and  his  church. 

He  received  his  education  at  the  end  of  the  seven- 
ties and  the  beginning  of  the  eighties — the  days  of 
the  severest  classicism.  In  1884  he  graduated 
from  the  Gymnasia,  and  entered  the  Historical- 
Philosophical  course  at  the  University  of  St.  Peters- 
burg. There  he  first  came  in  contact  with  the  gov- 
ernment: he  organized  a  Moliere  club,  which  was 
duly  raided  by  the  political  police,  while  he  escaped 
exile  only  through  the  influence  of  his  father.  He 
tells  us  frankly  that  he  owes  his  freedom  of  speech 
throughout  his  career  only  to  a  lucky  chance. 

While  in  the  University,  he  took  up  positivism 
in  earnest,  and  studied  Spencer,  Comte,  Mill,  and 
Darwin.  "But  being  religious,"  he  writes,  "I  sur- 
mised darkly  the  instability  of  the  positivistic  phil- 
osophy. I  pondered,  but  found  no  way  out,  and 
was  beset  with  pains  and  doubts."  The  way  out 
is  bodied  forth  most  definitely  in  The  Menace  of 
the  Mob,  but  it  is  shown,  in  greater  or  lesser  degree, 
in  practically  all  of  his  other  writings  as  well.  But 
this  discovery  was  to  be  the  result  of  later  years. 


INTRODUCTION  13 

In  1880  he  met  Dostoievsky,  whom  his  father 
knew;  also  Nadson,  the  poet,  whom  he  grew  to  love 
as  a  brother,  and  with  whom  he  held  endless  reli- 
gious disputes.  At  the  house  of  PlescheiefF,  the 
editor,  he  met  the  great  satirical  writer,  Schedrin- 
Saltykoff — also  at  this  period. 

Mme.  DavidofF,  the  wife  of  the  well-known  musi- 
cian and  director  of  the  Conservatory  of  St.  Peters- 
burg, had  a  salon  frequented  by  all  the  celebrities 
of  that  day.  It  was  there  that  he  met  Goncharov — 
"a  blind,  gray  old  man" — and  the  poets  Maikov 
and  Polonsky;  later  on — Korolenko,  Garshin, 
Michailovsky  and  Uspenski.  The  last  two  he  calls 
his  first  real  teachers;  Michailovsky,  he  admits, 
exercised  a  great  influence  on  his  life  and  person- 
ality. During  a  visit  to  Uspenski,  he  argued  the 
whole  night  through  with  his  host  over  "a  ques- 
tion which  concerned  me  in  the  highest  degree — 
the  religious  spirit  in  life." 

Influenced  by  Tolstoy's  Confessions,  he  under- 
takes a  journey  on  foot  through  the  Volga  district, 
conversing  with  peasants  whenever  an  opportunity 
presented  itself.  He  is  constantly  haunted  by  the 
dim  surmise  that  naturalistic  positivism  is  not  the 
ultimate  truth.  It  was  also  at  this  period  that  he 
wanted  to  become  a  country  school-teacher,  but 
"was  laughed  out  of  it." 


14  INTRODUCTION 

Merejkovski  made  his  first  appearance  in  print 
in  1882,  when  a  poem  of  his  appeared  in  The 
Illustrated  Survey,  edited  by  Schiller-Michailov. 
His  later  works  appeared  in  Notes  of  the  Father' 
land.  To  the  Northern  Messenger  he  contributed  a 
"ponderous  dramatic  poem,  Sylvia,^'  and  an  essay 
on  Chekhov,  who  was  just  appearing  then,  and  was 
as  yet  unrecognized. 

Under  the  influence  of  Dostoievsky,  and  several 
foreign  poets,  such  as  Baudelaire  and  Poe,  Me- 
rejkovski has  championed  the  moderns,  but  not  so 
much  the  decadents  as  the  symbolists.  He  gave 
the  title  of  Symbols  to  a  volume  of  his  verse  ap- 
pearing in  1890,  and  was  the  first  to  bring  the  word 
"symbol"  into  Russian  literature. 

After  finishing  the  University,  he  went  on  a  trip 
to  the  Caucasus,  where  he  met  the  famous  poetess, 
Hippius,  and  proposed  to  her.  They  were  married 
at  Tiflis  the  following  winter,  and  returned  to  St. 
Petersburg. 

His  mother  died  shortly  after.  "I  found  that 
this  death,"  he  writes,  "the  illness  of  my  wife,  and 
other  calamities  were  the  foundation  of  the  literary 
strain  I  underwent.  The  accusation  that  my  re- 
ligiousness is  derived  from  books  is  false." 

The  volume  Eternal  Journeys,  and  several  trans- 
lations of  old  Greek  dramas  were  the  fruit  of  his 


INTRODUCTION        '  15 

journeys  in  Rome,  Florence,  Taormina,  Athens, 
and  Constantinople. 

In  1893  he  commenced  the  trilogy  of  Christ 
and  Anti-Christ,  which  took  twelve  years  to  com- 
plete. Julian  the  Apostate  was  refused  every- 
where, but  was  finally  accepted  by  the  Northern 
Messenger — "and  there  the  novel  was  taken  really 
only  through  pity."  Further  he  tells  us:  "I  was 
especially  poorly  welcomed  in  Russian  literature, 
and  to  this  day  have  to  withstand  a  certain  attitude 
of  enmity.  I  can  already  celebrate  my  twenty- 
fifth  anniversary  of  unfair  persecution  on  the  part 
of  Russian  critics." 

It  was  also  at  the  end  of  the  nineties  that  he 
founded  a  religious  and  philosophical  society,  the 
first  impulse  for  which  he  received  from  his  wife. 
Needless  to  say,  the  society  was  suppressed. 

Merejkovski  admits  that  he  was  not  quite  just  in 
his  book  on  Tolstoy.  In  1914,  in  company  with 
his  wife,  he  visited  Yasnaya  Poliana.  They  found 
Tolstoy  very  friendly,  and  held  religious  disputes 
with  him.  "At  parting  he  looked  at  me  with  his 
good-natured,  rather  uncanny,  small  eyes,  like 
those  of  a  bear.  'I  have  heard  that  you  don't  like 
me.     I  am  glad  that  is  not  so.'  " 

All  of  his  activities  in  1905-1906  helped  vari- 
ously in  his  development.     He  does  not,  however. 


16  INTRODUCTION 

consider  his  development  completed  as  yet,  as  he 
tells  us  in  an  autobiographical  sketch  published  in 
1914,  from  which  these  biographical  data  have 
been  taken. 

After  the  Moscow  uprising,  Merejkovski  went  to 
Paris  with  his  wife.  There  he  published,  in 
French,  The  Czar  and  The  Revolution,  in  collabora- 
tion with  PhilosofF.  The  drama  of  Paul  I  was 
presented,  also  in  1908,  and  was  forbidden  by  the 
authorities  after  the  first  performance.  The  accu- 
sation of  lese  majeste  was  withdrawn  only  four 
years  later.  Upon  his  return  to  Russia  during 
1908,  the  manuscript  of  Alexander  I  was  confis- 
cated. 

The  deep  connection  of  political  Russia  with 
religion  has  become  fully  apparent  to  Merejkovski, 
and  he  has  learned,  "not  abstractedly,  but  with 
flesh  and  soul,  that  in  Russia  orthodoxy  and  the 
existing  order  are  inseparably  bound  up  with  one 
another,  and  that  we  can  attain  to  a  new  conception 
of  Christianity  only  if  both  autocracy  and  ortho- 
doxy are  equaly  discarded." 

That  is  why,  perhaps,  he  considers  the  Russian 
revolutionaries  he  met  in  Paris  as  the  best  of  all 
the  Russians  he  had  ever  seen  in  his  life,  and  is 
still  of  the  same  opinion. 

The  reader  of  these  essays  cannot  but  perceive 


INTRODUCTION  17 

Merejkovski's  supreme  and  unerring  insight  into 
the  Russian  heart  and  mind.  All  the  books  written 
about  Russia  by  outsiders  cannot  tell  us  one  jot 
as  much  as  the  self-analytical  study  in  contrasts  in 
The  Blossoms  of  Bourgeoisie.  Nor  can  there  be 
any  doubt  of  his  sincerity,  his  earnestness — he 
spares  himself  not  one  whit  in  When  Christ  Shall 
Rise  Again — one  of  the  most  powerful  pleas  in  all 
literature  against  a  universal  infamy. 

He  is  not  a  logician,  perhaps;  he  is  frankly  a 
mystic,  and  his  appeal  is  to  a  more  poetical  factor 
than  logic — emotion.  Yet  though  he  may  probe 
our  wounds  mercilessly,  he  has  a  good  oil  which 
heals  to  offer  us,  if  we  will  but  take  it.  All  his 
works,  practically,  are  imbued  with  the  same  spirit 
and  purpose — Christ  and  Christianity.  He  is  con- 
sistently a  Christian.  One  cannot  sum  up  his  atti- 
tude and  aims  better  than  in  his  own  words,  in 
conclusion  to  his  foreword  to  the  trilogy  of  Christ 
and  Anti-Christ: 

*7  would  like  to  dedicate  my  labor — our  labor 
— to  that  generation  of  Russian  people  which  shall 
understand,  that  Christianity  not  only  has  been,  but 
is  and  shall  be;  that  Christ  is  not  only  a  perfect  but 
a  constantly  growing  Truth;  that  the  liberation  of 
Russia,  the  liberation  of  the  world,  cannot  take 
place  otherwise  than  in  the  name  of  Christ.'* 


18  INTRODUCTION 

There  are  many  prophets  crying  in  the  wilder- 
ness; if  there  be  among  them  one  who  does  not 
merely  cry,  but  also  points  a  way  out  of  the  wilder- 
ness, shall  we  not  heed  and  follow  him,  if  he  be 
also  a  seer  whose  previous  prophecies  have  been 
fulfilled? 

Bernard  Guilbert  Guerney. 

New  York  City, 
October,  1920 


THE  MENACE  OF  THE  MOB 


B 


' '  X^  OURGEOISIE  will  conquer,  and  must 
conquer,"  wrote  Hertzen  in  1864,  in  his 
essay.  Ends  and  Beginnings.  "Yes, 
my  dear  friend,  it  is  time  to  come  to  the  calm  and 
submissive  realization  that  bourgeoisie  is  the  final 
form  of  civilization  in  the  South." 

Hertzen  can  hardly  be  suspected  of  a  lack  of 
love  for  Europe.  For  he  is  precisely  one  of  those 
Russians  who,  as  Dostoievsky  expresses  it,  have 
"two  native  lands:  our  Russia  and  Europe."  Per- 
haps he  did  not  know  himself  which  he  loved  more 
— Russia  or  Europe.  Like  his  friend  Bakunin,  he 
was  convinced  that  the  final  liberation  is  the  deed 
not  of  any  single  nation,  but  of  all  the  nations  to- 
gether, of  all  mankind;  and  that  a  nation  can  liber- 
ate itself  completely  only  by  renouncing  its  national 
individualism  and  entering  the  circle  of  the  life 
of  all  mankind.  "Universal  Humanity,"  which 
was  an  aesthetic  contemplation  to  Pushkin,  in  the 
case  of  Hertzen  becomes  a  life  influence,  a  grand 
exploit.     He  sacrificed  his  love  for  Russia  to  his 


21 


22  THE  MENACE  OF  THE  MOB 

love  for  Europe,  not  in  the  abstract  but  in  reality. 
He  became  a  life-long  exile  for  Europe,  he  lived 
for  her,  and  he  was  ready  to  die  for  her.  In  his 
periods  of  dejection  and  disenchantment  he  re- 
gretted not  having  taken  the  rifle  off^ered  to  him  by 
a  workman  at  the  time  of  the  revolution  of  1848 
in  Paris,  and  not  dying  at  the  barricades. 

If  such  a  man  as  this  had  come  to  doubt  in  Eu- 
rope, it  was  not  because  he  had  little  faith  in  it,  but 
because  he  had  too  much.  And  when  he  pro- 
nounces his  sentence:  "I  see  the  inevitable  ruin  of 
old  Europe,  and  regret  nothing  in  existence;"  when 
he  asserts  that  within  the  portals  of  the  old  world 
is  "not  Catiline,  but  Death,"  and  on  his  brow  the 
Ciceronian  '^vixerimt" — then,  though  one  may  not 
accept  this  sentence, — I  personally  do  not  accept  it, 
— one  cannot  but  admit  that,  coming  from  the  lips 
of  Hertzen,  it  has  a  fearful  weight. 

In  support  of  his  reasonings  anent  the  inevitable 
victory  of  bourgeoisie  in  Europe,  Hertzen  refers  to 
one  of  the  noblest  representatives  of  European  cul- 
ture, to  one  of  its  "knights  beyond  fear  or  re- 
proach"— to  John  Stuart  Mill. 

"Bourgeoisie,"  says  Hertzen,  "is  no  other  than 
the  sovereign  mob  of  John  Stuart  Mill's  'conglom- 
erated mediocrity,'  which  reigns  over  all  things, — 
the  mob  without  ignorance,  but  without  education 


THE  MENACE  OF  THE  MOB  23 

as  well.  .  .  .  Mill  beholds  everything  around  him 
becoming  vulgar,  small;  he  looks  with  despair  upon 
these  crushing  masses  of  some  prolific  spawn,  com- 
pressed out  of  the  myriads  of  bourgeois  shallow- 
ness. ...  He  does  not  at  all  exaggerate  when  he 
speaks  of  the  contraction  of  intellect  and  energy; 
of  the  obliteration  of  personalities;  of  the  constant 
degeneration  of  life ;  of  the  constant  exclusion  from 
it  of  all  universally  human  interests;  of  its  resolv- 
ing itself  into  the  interests  of  the  counting  room 
and  the  well-being  of  the  bourgeoisie.  Mill  pro- 
claims plainly  that  by  following  this  course  Eng- 
land will  become  China — we  will  add:  and  not 
England  alone. 

"It  may  be  that  some  crisis  may  even  save  it 
from  the  Chinese  marasmus.  But  whence  will  it 
come,  and  how? — this  I  do  not  know,  and  even 
Mill  does  not  know."  "Where  is  that  mighty 
thought,  that  passionate  faith,  that  fervent  hope, 
which  can  steel  the  body,  bring  the  soul  to  an  ec- 
static rapture,  which  feels  neither  pain  nor  priva- 
tions, and  with  a  firm  step  marches  on  to  the  heads- 
man's block  and  the  burning  stake?  Look  around 
you — what  is  capable  of  elevating  the  nations?" 

''Christianity  has  grown  shallow,  and  come  to 
rest  in  the  quiet,  rocky  harbor  of  reformation;  re- 
volution also  has  grown  shallow,  and  come  to  rest 


24  THE  MENACE  OF  THE  MOB 

in  the  quiet,  sandy  harbor  of  liberalism.  .  .  . 
With  such  a  complacent  church,  with  such  a  tame 
revolution,  southern  Europe  has  begun  to  settle,  to 
seek  its  equilibrium." 

"Wherever  the  human  ant-hills  and  bee-hives  at- 
tained a  relative  contentment  and  equilibrium,  the 
forward  movement  became  more  and  more  quiet, 
until,  in  the  end,  came  the  final  calm  of  China." 

In  the  track  of  the  "Asiatic  nations,  passed  out  of 
history,"  all  Europe,  with  a  calm,  imperturbable 
step  is  marching  on  to  this  final  calm  of  a  con- 
tented ant-hill,  to  "the  crystallization  of  bour- 
geoisie," to  Chinafication. 

Hertzen  agrees  with  Mill:  "If  some  unexpected 
upheaval,  which  shall  regenerate  human  individ- 
ualism and  give  it  strength  to  conquer  bourgeoisie, 
does  not  occur  in  Europe,  then,  regardless  of  its 
noble  antecedents  and  its  Christianity,  Europe  shall 
become  China." 

"Ponder  upon  it,"  Hertzen  concludes  this  letter 
to  an  unknown  Russian, — to  all  the  people  of  Rus- 
sia, it  would  seem, — "ponder  upon  it,  and  your 
hair  will  stand  on  end." 

Neither  Mill  nor  Hertzen  perceived  the  ultimate 
cause  of  this  spiritual  bourgeoisie.  "We  are  not 
at  all  the  physicians — we  are  the  pain,"  warns 
Hertzen.     And,  actually,  in  all  these  prophecies — 


THE  MENACE  OF  THE  MOB  25 

prophecies  upon  one's  own  head,  not  only  for  Mill, 
but  partly  for  Hertzen  as  well — there  is  no  result, 
no  knowledge,  but  only  the  cry  of  an  unknown 
pain,  an  unknown  horror.  Hertzen  and  Mill  could 
not  see  the  cause  of  bourgeoisie,  as  a  man  cannot 
see  his  face  without  a  mirror.  That  with  which 
they  suffer  and  which  they  fear  in  others,  lodges 
not  only  in  others,  but  in  themselves, — in  the  ulti- 
mate, insurmountable,  and,  even  to  them,  invisible 
limits  of  their  own  religious,  or,  more  correctly, 
their  antireligious,  consciousness. 

The  last  limit  of  all  contemporary  culture  in 
Europe  is  positivism,  or,  in  the  terminology  of 
Hertzen,  "scientific  realism,"  as  a  method  not  only 
of  the  individual  scientist,  but  of  all  philosophical 
and  even  religious  thought  in  general.  Having  its 
birth  in  science  and  philosophy,  positivism  has 
growTi  out  of  a  scientific  and  philosophical  con- 
sciousness into  an  unconscious  religion,  which 
strives  to  abolish  and  replace  by  itself  all  former 
religions.  Positivism,  in  this  broad  sense,  is  an 
affirmation  of  a  universe  revealed  to  physical  expe- 
rience, as  the  only  real  one,  and  a  denial  of  a  super- 
physical  universe;  a  denial  of  the  beginning  and 
end  of  the  universe  in  God  and  the  affirmation  of  a 
continuance,  without  beginning  or  end,  of  a  uni- 
verse of  phenomena,  of  a  medium  of  phenomena — 


26  THE  MENACE  OF  THE  MOB 

a  medium  without  beginning  or  end,  impermeable 
to  man;  a  mediety,  mediocrity — that  absolute 
"conglomerated  mediocrity,"  as  perfectly  solid  as 
the  Great  Wall  of  China,  that  absolute  bourgeoisie, 
of  which  Mill  and  Hertzen  speak  without  under- 
standing the  ultimate  metaphysical  depth  of  what 
they  are  saying. 

In  Europe  positivism  is  only  becoming  a  religion, 
in  China  it  has  already  become  one.  The  spiritual 
foundation  of  China — the  teachings  of  Lao-tse  and 
Confucius — is  a  perfect  positivism,  a  religion  with- 
out a  God,  "an  earthly  religion,  without  a  heaven," 
as  Hertzen  expresses  himself  about  European  scien- 
tific realism.  There  are  no  mysteries  of  any  sort, 
no  depths  and  longings  for  "other  worlds  than 
ours."  Everything  is  simple,  everything  is  on  a 
plane.  Insuperable  common  sense,  insuperable 
positiveness.  All  that  is,  is;  and  there  is  nothing 
more,  nor  need  for  anything  more.  This  world  is 
all,  and  there  is  no  other  world  save  this.  Heaven 
is  not  the  beginning  and  the  end,  but  a  continua- 
tion, without  beginning  or  end,  of  the  earth.  Earth 
and  heaven  shall  not  be  one,  as  Christianity  affirms, 
but  one  substance.  The  greatest  empire  on  earth  is 
verily  the  Celestial  Empire,  the  heaven  on  earth, 
the  Median  Kingdom — the  kingdom  of  the  eternal 
mean,  of  eternal  mediocrity,  absolute  bourgeoisie, 


THE  MENACE  OF  THE  MOB  27 

"a  kingdom  not  of  God,  but  of  man,"  as  Hertzen, 
once  more,  defines  the  common  idealism  of  posi- 
tivism. The  European  worship  of  descendants — 
the  golden  age  of  the  future — corresponds  to  the 
Chinese  worship  of  ancestors — the  golden  age  of 
the  past.  If  not  we,  then  our  descendants  shall  see 
an  earthly  paradise,  a  heaven  on  earth,  asserts  the 
religion  of  progress.  Both  in  the  worship  of  ances- 
tors and  the  worship  of  descendants,  the  only  visage 
of  man  is  equally  sacrificed:  personality  to  imper- 
sonality, to  a  countless  race,  to  the  people,  to  man- 
kind— "the  masses  of  some  prolific  spawn,  com- 
pressed out  of  the  myriads  of  bourgeois  shallow- 
ness," the  coming  universal  polyp  and  ant-hill. 
Denying  God,  denying  an  absolute  Divine  Person- 
ality^  man  inevitably  denies  his  own  human  per- 
sonality. Refusing,  for  the  sake  of  a  pottage  of 
lentils  of  a  moderate  repletion,  his  divine  hunger 
and  divine  primogeniture,  man  inevitably  falls  into 
absolute  bourgeoisie. 

Chinamen  are  perfect  yellow-faced  positivists; 
Europeans  are  as  yet  imperfect  white-faced  China- 
men. In  this  respect  Americans  are  nearer  per- 
fection than  the  Europeans.  Here  furthest  South 
joins  furthest  East. 

That  collision  of  China  with  Europe,  which  is  be- 
ginning, but  probably  will  not  end  before  our  eyes, 


28  THE  MENACE  OF  THE  MOB 

would  have  an  especially  prophetic  and  threatening 
meaning  for  Hertzen  and  Mill.  China  has  brought 
to  perfection  positivistic  contemplation,  but  posi- 
tivistic  action,  all  the  applied  technical  side  of  posi- 
tive knowledge,  was  lacking  to  China.  Japan,  not 
only  the  military,  but  the  cultural  vanguard  of  the 
East,  took  from  the  Europeans  this  technical  side 
of  civilization  and  at  once  became  invincible  to 
them.  As  long  as  Europe  opposed  her  best  can- 
nons to  the  Chinese  wretched  ones,  she  conquered, 
and  this  victory  appeared  a  triumph  of  culture  over 
barbarism.  But  when  the  cannons  became  equal, 
cultures  became  equal  as  well.  It  was  found  that 
Europe  never  even  had  anything  save  cannons 
whereby  she  could  show  her  cultural  superiority 
over  the  barbarians.  Christianity?  But  "Chris- 
tianity has  grown  shallow;"  it  still  has  a  certain 
significance,  though  quite  a  dubious  one,  however, 
for  the  internal  politics  of  Europe;  but  when  con- 
temporary Christianity,  passing  beyond  the  boun- 
dary of  Europe,  finds  it  necessary  to  exchange  its 
bills  of  credit  for  pure  gold,  none  will  give  any- 
thing for  them.  And  even  in  Europe  the  most 
barefaced  are  ashamed  to  talk  of  Christianity,  be- 
cause of  such  serious  things  as  war.  At  one  time 
a  fountain-head  of  great  power,  Christianity  has 
now  become  a  fountain-head  of  great  impotence,  of 


THE  MENACE  OF  THE  MOB  29 

suicidal  inconsistency,  of  the  contradiction  of  all 
culture  in  southern  Europe.  Christianity — the  old 
Semitic  yeast  in  the  Aryan  blood — is  verily  just 
that  which  does  not  let  it  settle  definitely,  interferes 
with  the  final  "crystallization,"  the  Chinafication 
of  Europe.  It  would  seem  that  the  positivism  of 
the  white  race  is  forever  spoiled,  "wet  underneath" 
with  "the  metaphysical  and  theological  period." 
The  positivism  of  the  yellow  race  in  general  and  of 
the  Japanese  in  particular — this  newly-laid  little 
egg  of  the  little  Mongolian  hen  by  the  little  white 
Aryan  rooster — is  unspoiled  by  anything:  as  it  has 
been  through  two  or  three  millennia,  so  has  it  re- 
mained, so  shall  it  remain  forever.  European  posi- 
tivism is  still  too  intellectual — superficial,  that  is: 
of  the  skin,  so  to  say;  the  yellow  people  are  posi- 
tivists  to  the  marrow  of  their  bones.  And  the  cul- 
tural heritage  of  the  ages — Chinese  metaphysics 
and  theology — do  not  weaken  but  strengthen  this 
natural  physiological  gift. 

He  who  is  true  to  his  physiology  is  consistent;  he 
who  is  consistent  is  strong;  and  he  who  is  strong 
conquers.  Japan  conquered  Russia.  China  will 
conquer  Europe,  unless  a  great  spiritual  change  be 
achieved  within  it,  which  shall  overturn  the  last 
metaphysical  foundations  of  her  culture,  and  allow 
it  to  oppose  to  the  cannons  of  the  positivistic  East 


30  THE  MENACE  OF  THE  MOB 

not  alone  the  cannons  of  the  positivistic  South,  but 
something  more  real,  more  substantial. 

That  is  where  the  chief  "yellow  peril"  is — not 
without,  but  within;  not  in  that  Qiina  is  going  into 
Europe,  but  in  that  Europe  is  going  into  China. 
Our  faces  are  still  white;  but  already  under  the 
white  skin  flows  not  the  former  rich,  crimson  Aryan 
blood,  but  a  "yellow"  blood,  thinner  and  thinner, 
resembling  Mongolian  ichor;  the  slit  of  our  eyes 
is  straight,  but  the  outlook  is  beginning  to  slant 
and  narrow.  And  the  direct  white  light  of  the 
European  day  is  turning  into  the  oblique  "yellow" 
light  of  the  Chinese  setting  sun,  or  the  Japanese 
rising  sun.  At  the  present  time  the  Japanese  seem 
to  be  the  dressed-up  apes  of  the  Europeans;  who 
knows  but  that,  in  time,  Europeans  and  even  Amer- 
icans may  seem  the  dressed-up  apes  of  the  Japanese 
and  Chinese,  incorrigible  idealists,  romanticists  of 
the  old  world,  who  only  pretend  to  be  positivists, 
masters  of  the  new  world.  It  may  be  that  the  war 
of  the  yellow  race  with  the  white  was  only  a  mis- 
understanding: kin  did  not  recognize  kin.  When 
they  shall  recognize  each  other,  however,  war  shall 
end  with  peace,  and  then  there  shall  be  "a  peace 
of  all  the  world,"  the  final  calm  and  quietude  of 
heaven,  the  Celestial  Empire,  the  Median  Kingdom 
over  all  the  world,  from  East  to  South,  the  final 


THE  MENACE  OF  THE  MOB  31 

"crystallization,  the  bee-hive  and  ant-hill  of  all 
mankind,  the  solid  "compressed  spawn"  of  bour- 
geoisie encrusting  the  earthly  sphere, — and  not 
even  bourgeoisie,  but  the  canaille,  because  bour- 
geoisie having  reached  its  limits  and  come  into 
power  is  the  canaille. 

"Ponder  upon  it,"  we  may  conclude  these  reflec- 
tions, as  Hertzen  concluded  them  formerly,  "pon- 
der upon  it,  and  your  hair  will  stand  on  end." 

Hertzen  had  two  hopes  for  the  salvation  of 
Europe  from  China. 

The  first — the  weaker  one — for  a  social  over- 
turn.    Hertzen  stated  the  dilemma  thus: 

"If  the  people  will  be  broken,  a  new  China  is 
inevitable.  But  if  the  people  break,  a  social  over- 
turn is  inevitable." 

Query:  Having  broken  down  the  social  oppres- 
sion, with  what,  and  in  the  name  of  what,  will  the 
people  break  down  as  well  the  inner  spiritual  be- 
ginning of  bourgeois  culture?  With  what  new 
faith,  what  source  of  new  nobility?  With  what 
volcanic  explosion  of  human  individuality  against 
the  impersonal  ant-hill? 

Hertzen  himself  asserts: 

"Behind  the  majority  now  in  power  (i.  e.,  behind 
the  majority  of  the  capitalistic  bourgeoisie),  stands 
a  still  greater  majority  of  candidates  for  it  {i.  e.,  the 


32  THE  MENACE  OF  THE  MOB 

proletariat),  for  whom  the  manners,  conceptions, 
and  the  ways  of  living  of  the  bourgeoisie  are  the 
only  goal  of  all  their  endeavors;  there  are  enough 
of  them  for  ten  changes.  A  world  without  land, 
the  world  of  the  city  proletariat,  has  no  other  way 
of  salvation,  and  will  be  all  permeated  with  bour- 
geoisie, which  in  our  eyes  has  retrograded,  but  in 
the  eyes  of  the  rustic  population  and  proletarians 
represents  education  and  development." 

But  if  the  people  "will  be  all  permeated  with 
bourgeoisie,"  then,  it  may  be  asked,  where  will  it 
arrive?  Will  it  be  out  of  the  present,  imperfect 
bourgeoisie  into  a  future  and  perfect  one;  out  of 
the  unhappy,  capitalistic  ant-hill  into  a  happy, 
socialistic  one;  out  of  the  dark,  iron  age  of  Europe 
into  the  "yellow,"  golden  age  and  eternity  of 
China?  The  hungry  proletariat  and  the  satiated 
bourgeois  have  diflferent  economical  interests,  but 
their  metaphysics  and  religion  are  the  same — the 
metaphysics  of  a  sober  common  sense,  a  religion 
of  a  sober  bourgeois  repletion.  The  war  of  the 
fourth  estate  with  the  third,  economically  real,  is 
just  as  unreal  metaphysically  and  religiously  as  the 
war  of  the  yellow  race  with  the  white;  both  there 
and  here  is  might  against  might,  and  not  God 
against  God.     In  both  cases  there  is  one  and  the 


THE  MENACE  OF  THE  MOB  53 

same  misunderstanding:  behind  an  external,  tem- 
porary war  there  is  an  internal,  perpetual  peace. 

And  so,  to  the  question  with  what  the  people  will 
conquer  bourgeoisie,  Hertzen  has  no  answer  of  any 
sort.  True,  he  could  have  borrowed  the  answer 
of  his  friend,  the  anarchist  Bakunin;  he  could  have 
gone  over  from  socialism  to  anarchism.  Socialism 
desires  to  replace  one  social  order  with  another, 
the  rule  of  the  minority  with  the  rule  of  the  ma- 
jority; anarchism  denies  every  social  order,  every 
external  rule,  in  the  name  of  absolute  freedom, 
absolute  individuality — this  beginning  of  all  be- 
ginnings and  end  of  all  ends.  Bourgeoisie,  in- 
vincible to  socialism,  seems  vincible  to  anarchism 
— although  only  till  a  certain  time,  until  new,  still 
more  extreme  inferences,  which,  however,  neither 
Hertzen  nor  Bakunin  foresaw.  The  strength  and 
weakness  of  socialism,  as  a  religion,  is  in  that  it 
predetermines  a  future  social  creative  power  and 
just  through  this  involuntarily  includes  within  itself 
the  spirit  of  the  eternal  Mean,  of  bourgeoisie,  the 
inevitable  metaphysical  consequence  of  positivism 
as  a  religion,  on  which  socialism  itself  is  builded. 
The  strength  and  weakness  of  anarchism  is  in  that 
it  does  not  predetermine  any  social  creative  power, 
does  not  bind  itself  before  the  past  with  any  respon- 


34  THE  MENACE  OF  THE  MOB 

sibility  for  the  future,  and  from  the  historical  shoal 
of  bourgeoisie  sails  out  upon  the  open  sea  of  un- 
plumbed  historical  depths,  where  it  is  on  the  brink 
either  of  a  total  wreck,  or  the  discovery  of  a  new 
heaven    and    a   new    earth.     "We   must    destroy, 
destroy  only,  without  thinking  of  creating, — it  is 
not   our  business  to  create,"   preaches  Bakunin. 
But  here  conscious  positivism  already  ceases,  and 
hidden,  unconscious  mysticism  commences — athe- 
istic, antitheistic,  if  you  will,  but  mysticism  still. 
When  Bakunin  in  Dieu  et  Vetat  supposes  that  his 
"antitheologism" — more  correctly,  antitheism, — is 
a  basis  for  anarchy,  he  touches  upon  limits  of  nega- 
tion far  too  dangerous,  where  minus  by  minus 
produces  an  unexpected  plus,  an  accidental  affirma- 
tion of  some  converse,  unconscious  religion.     "The 
absolutely  free  man"  of  Bakunin  too  greatly  resem- 
bles a  fantastic  "superman,"  a  non-man,  to  be  re- 
ceived with  peace  at  heart  by  Hertzen,  who  fears 
mysticism  more  than  anything  else,  even  more  than 
bourgeoisie  itself,  not  realizing  that  this  supersti- 
tious fear  of  mysticism  already  has  something  of 
the  mystical  in  it.     Be  that  as  it  may,  Hertzen,  a 
socialist    of    the    true    faith,    shrank    back    from 
Bakunin  the  anarchist,  who  had  fallen  into  heresy. 
Towards  the  end  of  his  life  Hertzen  lost,  or  al- 
most lost,  hope  in  the  social  overturn  in  Europe; 


THE  MENACE  OF  THE  MOB  35 

apparently,  however,  because  he  had  ceased  to  be- 
lieve not  so  much  in  its  possibility  as  in  its  salutari- 
ness. 

Then  it  was  that  the  last  light  began  to  glimmer 
in  the  advancing  gloom,  the  last  hope  of  the  on- 
coming despair, — a  hope  in  Russia,  in  the  Russian 
rural  commune,  which,  it  would  seem,  was  to  save 
Europe. 


11 

IF  Hertzen  was  the  Mephistopheles  of  Bakunin 
in  the  unveiling  of  the  unconscious  mysticism 
of  the  anarchistic  "underworld,"  then  Bak- 
unin, in  his  turn,  was  the  Mephistopheles  of  Hert- 
zen in  the  unveiling  of  just  as  unconscious  a  mysti- 
cism about  the  Russian  commune  as  a  savior  of 
Europe. 

"You  are  ready  to  forgive  everything,"  wrote 
Bakunin  to  Ogarev  and  Hertzen  from  Ischia  in 
1866,  "ready,  if  you  like,  to  support  everything, 
if  not  directly  then  indirectly,  if  only  your  mystical 
holy  of  holies  remain  inviolable,  the  commune  of 
Great  Russia,  from  which  mystically — do  not  grow 
angry  at  an  offensive  but  true  word — you  expect 
the  salvation  not  only  of  the  people  of  Great  Russia, 
but  also  of  all  the  Slavic  lands,  of  Europe,  of  the 
world.  And,  by  the  way,  tell  me  why  you  have 
not  deigned  to  answer  seriously  and  plainly  to  the 
serious  reproach  made  to  you:  you  have  caught  in 
the  Russian  peasant  hut,  which,  with  its  landed 

rights,  has  itself  caught,  and  so  stands  for  ages,  in 

S7 


38  THE  MENACE  OF  THE  MOB 

a  Chinese  immobility.  Why  has  this  commune, 
from  which  you  expect  such  wonders  in  the  future, 
produced  nothing  from  itself  during  all  of  ten 
centuries,  except  the  most  abominable  serfdom? 
An  abominable  corruption  and  the  patriarchal  cus- 
toms, v/ith  their  complete  lack  of  rights,  a  lack  of 
rights  of  the  individual  before  the  community,  and 
the  all-oppressive  burden  of  this  community,  kill- 
ing every  possibility  of  individual  initiative;  the  ab- 
sence not  only  of  juridicial  rights,  but  of  common 
justice  in  the  decisions  of  this  very  community 
and  the  cruel  unceremoniousness  of  its  attitude  to- 
ward every  poor  or  weak  member;  its  systematic 
oppression  of  those  members  who  show  pretensions 
to  the  least  independence,  and  the  readiness  to  sell 
every  right  and  every  truth  for  a  bucket  of  whisky 
— here,  in  the  entirety  of  its  real  character,  is  the 
peasant  commune  of  Great  Russia." 

What  answer  could  the  orthodox  Hertzen  have 
made  to  this  anathema  of  Bakunin,  the  heretic? 
Nothing  positive,  but  only  mystical,  rather:  credo, 
quia  absurdum, — just  as,  however,  Bakunin  could 
not  answer  anything  to  Hertzen  in  the  matter  of  the 
"antitheological,"  but  still  too  theological,  founda- 
tion of  anarchism,  this  absolute  liberation  of  abso- 
lute individuality,  incomprehensible  from  the  posi- 
tive— relative,  that  is, — point  of  view.     Therein  is 


THE  MENACE  OF  THE  MOB  39 

the  whole  crux  of  the  matter:  both  Hertzen  and 
Bakunin  had  bordering  deductions,  having  reached 
which,  they,  looking  each  other  in  the  eye,  should 
have  burst  into  laughter,  like  augurs.  But  they 
both  desired  to  be  not  the  augurs,  the  priests,  of 
the  old  gods,  but  to  be  the  prophets  of  the  new,  and 
therefore  avoided  looking  into  each  other's  eyes. 
Each  one,  in  order  not  to  laugh  at  himself,  laughed 
at  his  opponent;  but  during  this  mutual  laughter 
both  were  grievously  sad  at  heart. 

Why,  indeed,  must  the  common  ownership  of  the 
ant-hill  deliver  the  ants  from  the  lot  of  ants?  And 
wherein  is  savage  serfdom  better  than  cultured 
beastliness? 

When  Hertzen  ran  away  from  Russia  into  Eu- 
rope, he  fell  out  of  one  bondage  into  another, — 
from  the  material  into  the  spiritual.  And  when 
he  wanted  to  run  away  from  Europe  back  into  Rus- 
sia, he  fell  out  of  the  European  movement  toward 
a  new  China — into  the  old  "Chinese  immobility" 
of  Russia.  In  both  cases,  out  of  the  frying  pan  into 
the  fire.  Which  of  the  two  Chinas  is  better — the 
old  or  the  new?  "Both  are  worse,"  as  the  children 
answer.  Hertzen  knew  this,  yet  did  not  want  to 
know  it.  And  when  he  ran  from  one  China  into 
another,  he  was  running  away  from  himself,  beat- 
ing about  in  the  last  horror  of  the  last  realization, 


40  THE  MENACE  OF  THE  MOB 

that  there  was  no  longer  anything  to  believe  in, 
neither  in  Europe  nor  in  Russia.  "Pray,  what  does 
all  history  lead  to,  after  this?"  he  asks  himself  in 
one  of  his  hopeless  Hamletian  monologues. 

"But  then,  what  does  everything  in  this  world 
lead  to?  As  for  history,  I  do  not  make  it,  and 
therefore  do  not  answer  for  it." 

But  this  is  the  answer  of  Cain.  Why,  this  is  the 
Byronian  Darkness,  the  last  darkness,  the  limit 
of  despair  of  which  the  soul  of  man  is  capable. 
For  if  all  history  is  nonsense,  there  was  nothing  to 
make  a  fuss  about — to  fight  with  bourgeoisie,  des- 
potism, reaction:  come  what  may,  what  does  it  mat- 
ter?— all  the  world  is  "the  devil's  vaudeville,"  and, 
addressing  all  the  world,  there  only  remains  to  cry 
out,  as  in  1849,  after  the  revolution,  Hertzen  cries 
out,  addressing  old  Europe: 

"Long  live  destruction  and  chaos!  Long  live 
death! 

Or,  what  is  still  worse:  long  live  bourgeoisie!" 

"Christianity  has  grown  shallow,"  asserts  Hert- 
zen. If  it  has  grown  shallow,  it  means  that  it  was 
deep  at  one  time.  Why,  then,  does  he  not  sound 
this  depth  of  Christianity?  Is  it  not  because  the 
positivistic  plummet,  adapted  to  the  shoal  of  Chris- 
tianity, does  not  reach  to  the  bottom  in  deep  places? 

Together    with    Christianity — adds    Hertzen — 


THE  MENACE  OF  THE  MOB  41 

"revolution  has  grown  shallow  as  well."  If  they 
have  both  grown  shallow  in  common,  does  it  not 
mean  that  their  shoal  is  in  common,  and  their  depth 
also?  The  shoal — positivistic — is  the  absolute 
bourgeoisie  of  man  without  God;  the  depth — relig- 
ious— the  absolute  nobility  of  man  in  God.  Hert- 
zen  himself  acknowledges  the  connection  of  revolu- 
tionary ideas  with  religious  ones;  understands  that 
the  Declaration  and  Bill  of  Rights  could  not  have 
appeared  before,  and  without,  Christianity. 

"Revolution,"  he  says,  "just  as  reformation, 
stands  in  a  churchyard.  Voltaire,  blessing  Frank- 
lin's nephew,  'in  the  name  of  God  and  Liberty,'  is 
as  much  of  a  theologian  as  Saint  Basil  the  Great  or 
Gregory  of  Nazianzin,  only  in  a  diiferent  sense. 
The  cold  lunar  reflection  of  Catholicism  (i.  e.,  one 
of  the  greatest  attempts  of  universal  Christianity) 
is  permeated  with  all  the  destinies  of  revolution. 
The  last  word  of  Catholicism  is  spoken  by  reforma- 
tion and  revolution;  they  have  exposed  its  mystery; 
the  mystic  redemption  is  solved  by  political  libera- 
tion. The  symbol  of  the  faith  of  the  Nicene  Coun- 
cil expressed  itself  in  the  acknowledgment  of  the 
rights  of  every  man — the  symbol  of  the  last  uni- 
versal council,  i.  e.,  the  Convention  of  1792.  The 
morality  of  Matthew  the  Evangelist  is  the  very  same 
which  the  deist  Jean  Jacques  Rousseau  preaches. 


42  THE  MENACE  OF  THE  MOB 

Faith,  hope,  and  charity — at  the  entrance;  liberty, 
fraternity,  and  equality — at  the  exit." 

If  that  be  so,  then  it  would  seem  that,  before 
pronouncing  the  death  sentence  of  European  culture 
and  running  from  it  to  Russian  barbarism,  in  the 
despair  of  a  final  unbelief,  one  ought  to  think  if 
these  two  shoaled  beginnings  of  universal  culture 
— religion  and  sociality — could  not  somehow  be 
moved  from  their  common  positivistic  shoal  into 
their  common  religious  depths.  Why,  then,  does 
not  Hertzen  think  of  it?  For  still  the  same  reason, 
it  would  seem:  he  fears  religious  depths  still  more 
than  positivistic  shoals;  he  seems  to  see  in  the 
depth  of  any  mysticism  the  ferocious  beast  of  reac- 
tion, in  its  way  a  beast  of  the  Apocalypse,  coming 
out  of  its  abyss. 

The  reckless  Bakunin  has  thought,  and  made  an- 
swer, for  the  cautious  Hertzen;  Bakunin,  who  has 
resolved  the  dilemma  of  Hertzen  into  the  theologi- 
cal, or  "anti-theological,"  dilemma:  "Dieu  est, 
done  Vhomme  est  esclave.  L'homme  est  libre, 
done  il  ny  a  point  de  Dieu. — Je  defie  qui  que  ce 
soit  de  sortir  de  ce  cercle  et  maintenant  choisis- 
sons." 

"God  is,  therefore  man  is  a  slave.  Man  is  free, 
therefore  there  is  no  God.     I  maintain  that  no  one 


THE  MENACE  OF  THE  MOB  43 

can  escape  out  of  this  circle — and  now  let  us 
choose." 

"The  religion  of  humanity,"  concludes  Bakunin, 
"must  be  founded  on  the  ruins  of  the  religion  of 
Divinity." 

Voltaire  asserted:  if  there  is  no  God,  He  must 
be  invented.  Bakunin  asserts  the  very  opposite: 
if  there  is  a  God,  He  must  be  abolished.  This  re- 
minds one  of  the  Devil's  words  to  Ivan  Karamazov: 

"The  idea  of  a  God  must  be  destroyed  in  human- 
ity— we  must  start  work  from  that.  Once  human- 
ity denies  God,  everything  new  will  come." 

In  1869,  at  the  Congress  of  the  League  for  Peace 
and  Liberty  at  Berne,  Bakunin  proposed  to  adopt 
into  the  basis  of  the  socialistic  program  a  denial 
of  all  religions  and  the  avowal  that  "the  existence 
of  a  God  is  inconsistent  with  the  happiness,  dig- 
nity, reason,  morality  and  liberty  of  men." 

When  the  majority  rejected  this  resolution, 
Bakunin  with  certain  members  of  the  minority 
formed  a  new  Alliance,  Alliance  Socialiste,  the 
first  paragraph  of  whose  code  proclaimed:  "The 
Alliance  declares  itself  Godless  {athee)^ 

This  zealous  "antitheologism"  is  already  not 
only  the  denial  of  religion,  but  the  religion  of 
denial  as  well,  some  new  religion  without  a  God, 


44  THE  MENACE  OF  THE  MOB 

full  of  a  jealousy  no  less  fanatical  than  the  old  re- 
ligions with  a  God.  Turgeniev,  hearing  of  Bak- 
unin's  prank  at  Berne,  was  astonished.  "What  has 
happened  to  him!"  Turgeniev  asked  of  all.  "Why, 
he  was  always  a  believer,  he  even  scolded  Hertzen 
for  his  atheism.  Just  what,  then,  has  happened  to 
him?" 

It  is  plain  why  it  is  necessary  for  the  Devil  to 
destroy  in  men  the  idea  of  a  God :  that  is  why  he  is 
a  Devil,  in  order  to  hate  God.  But  A.  M.  Bakunin, 
regardless  of  all  his  antitheological  zeal,  is  not  a 
devil,  but  a  simple  man,  and  a  religious  one  to  boot. 
What,  then,  has  happened  to  him  indeed?  Why 
has  he  suddenly  come  to  hate  the  name  of  God, 
and,  like  one  possessed,  begun  to  blaspheme? 

"If  there  is  a  God,  man  is  a  slave,"  asserted 
Bakunin.  Why?  Because  "liberty  is  a  denial  of 
all  authority,  and  God  is  authority."  This  propo- 
sition Bakunin  considers  an  axiom.  And  truly, 
this  would  be  an  axiom,  if  there  were  no  Christ. 
Christ  has  revealed  to  men  that  God  is  not  author- 
ity, but  love;  not  an  external  power  of  authority, 
but  an  inner  power  of  love.  He  who  loves  does 
not  desire  slavery  for  the  one  beloved.  Between 
him  who  loves  and  him  who  is  loved  there  is  no 
other  power  save  love;  but  the  power  of  love  is  no 
longer  power,  but  freedom. 


THE  MENACE  OF  THE  MOB  45 

Perfect  love  is  perfect  freedom.  God  is  perfect 
love,  and,  consequently,  perfect  freedom.  When 
the  Son  says  to  the  Father:  "Not  my  will,  but  thine, 
be  done,"  it  is  not  the  submission  of  bondage,  but 
the  freedom  of  love.  The  Son  does  not  wish  to 
infringe  upon  the  will  of  the  Father  not  because 
he  cannot,  but  he  cannot  because  he  does  not  wish 
to. 

To  the  dilemma  of  Bakunin,  affirming  a  God  of 
hatred  and  bondage,  i.  e.,  in  reality  not  a  God,  but 
a  Devil,  can  be  opposed  another  dilemma,  affirm- 
ing the  true  God,  a  God  of  love  and  freedom: 

"God  is,  therefore  man  is  free;  man  is  a  slave, 
therefore  there  is  no  God.  I  maintain  that  no  one 
can  escape  out  of  this  circle — and  now  let  us 
choose." 

All  those  who  have  believed  in  God  have  always 
been  slaves,  Hertzen  would  have  agreed  with 
Bakunin.  But  the  idea  of  God,  the  idea  of  a  higher 
metaphysical  order,  cannot  be  subordinated  to  the 
experience  of  a  lower  historical  order.  And,  after 
all,  have  all  those  who  have  believed  in  God  been 
slaves?  What  of  Jacob,  who  wrestled  with  God; 
what  of  Job,  who  complained  against  God;  what 
of  the  prophets  of  Israel,  what  of  the  Christian 
martyrs? 

Bakunin  and  Hertzen,  desiring  to  strive  against 


46  THE  MENACE  OF  THE  MOB 

the  metaphysical  idea  of  God,  in  reality  strive 
against  historical  phantoms,  distorted  with  the  re- 
fractions of  this  idea  in  the  mists  of  political  low 
places;  they  strive  not  against  the  name  of  God,  but 
with  those  blasphemies  with  which  "the  prince  of 
this  earth,"  an  eternal  politician,  endeavors  to 
screen  from  men  that  name  which  to  him,  the  devil, 
is  the  holiest  and  most  fearful  of  all  the  names  of 
God:  Freedom. 

Of  course,  the  greatest  crime  in  history,  as  if  of 
a  second  crucifixion  no  longer  of  the  God-man,  but 
of  God-mankind,  consists  in  this:  that  on  the  cross, 
the  sign  of  divine  freedom,  human  freedom  has 
been  crucified.  But  can  it  be  possible  that  Bak- 
unin  and  Hertzen  would  be  bold  enough  to  assert 
that  the  Crucified  Himself  participated  in  this 
crime,  that  Christ  desired  bondage  for  men?  Can 
it  be  possible  that  Bakunin  and  Hertzen  have  never 
thought  of  the  meaning  of  Christ's  answer  to  the 
Devil,  when  he  offers  Him  power  over  all  the  king- 
doms of  this  earth:  "For  it  hath  been  delivered 
unto  me,"  said  the  Devil,  "and  to  whomsoever  I 
will  I  give  it."  If  He,  Who  said,  "All  authority 
hath  been  given  unto  me  in  heaven  and  on  earth," 
renounced  all  power  of  ruling  as  belonging  to  the 
Devil,  does  it  not  mean  that,  between  the  true,  inner 
power  of  love,  the  freedom  of  Christ,  and  the  out- 


THE  MENACE  OF  THE  MOB  47 

ward,  false  power,  bondage,  there  is  the  same  dif- 
ference as  between  the  Kingdom  of  God  and  the 
Kingdom  of  the  Devil?  Can  it  be  possible  that 
Bakunin  and  Hertzen  have  never  thought  of  the 
meaning  of  this  saying  of  Christ  also:  "Ye  shall 
know  the  truth,  and  the  truth  shall  make  you  free." 
If  to  them  this  is  a  word  that  has  not  been  kept, 
it  is  perhaps  because  they  are  indeed  words  not 
understood,  not  fully  assimilated:  "Ye  cannot  bear 
them  now.  Howbeit  when  he,  the  Spirit  of  truth, 
is  come,  he  shall  guide  you  into  all  truth."  And 
into  the  final  truth  of  love,  which  shall  make  men 
free. 

In  the  first  kingdom  of  the  Father,  the  Old  Tes- 
tament, was  revealed  the  power  of  God,  as  truth; 
in  the  second  kingdom  of  the  Son,  the  New  Testa- 
ment; the  truth  reveals  itself  as  love;  in  the  third, 
and  last,  kingdom  of  the  Spirit,  the  Coming  Testa- 
ment, love  will  be  revealed  as  freedom.  And  in 
this  last  kingdom  will  be  pronounced  and  heard  the 
last  name  of  the  Coming  Lord,  a  name  as  yet  un- 
pronounced  and  unheard  of  any:  The  Liberator. 

But  here  we  already  cast  off  not  only  from  this 
shore,  on  which  stands  European  culture,  with  its 
bourgeoisie  of  the  past  and  the  present,  but  from 
the  other  shore  as  well,  on  which  Hertzen  stands 
before  the  bourgeoisie  of  the  future;  we  float  out 


48  THE  MENACE  OF  THE  MOB 

into  the  open  ocean,  in  which  all  shores  disappear; 
into  the  ocean  of  the  Coming  Christianity,  as  one 
of  the  three  revelations  of  the  unified  Revelation  of 
the  Trinity. 

The  tragedy  of  Hertzen  is  in  this  halving:  with 
his  consciousness  he  rejected  God, — unconsciously, 
he  sought  Him.  Just  as  in  the  Bakunian  dilemma, 
from  the  accepted  premise:  man  is  free, — through 
his  consciousness  he  made  the  deduction:  therefore 
there  is  no  God;  unconsciously,  he  felt  the  incon- 
trovertibility  of  the  converse  dilemma:  if  there  is 
no  God,  there  is  also  no  freedom.  But  to  say: 
there  is  no  freedom,  was  for  Hertzen  tantamount  to 
saying:  there  is  no  meaning  in  life,  there  is  nothing 
to  live  for,  there  is  nothing  to  die  for.  And,  in 
fact,  he  lived  for,  and  died  for  the  sake  of,  that  in 
which  he  already  well-nigh  did  not  believe. 

This  is  not  the  first  prophet  and  martyr  of  a 
new,  but  the  last  warrior,  the  dying  gladiator  of  the 
old  world,  of  old  Rome. 

".  .  .  The  buzz  of  eager  nations  ran 

In  .  .  .    loud-roared  applause.  .  .  . 

I  see  before  me  the  gladiator  lie; 

He  leans  upon  his  hand;  his  manly  brow 

Consents  to  death,  but  conquers  agony.  .  .  ." 

The  beast  with  which  this  gladiator  fights  is  the 
bourgeoisie  of  the  future.     In  the  manner  of  his 


THE  MENACE  OF  THE  MOB  49 

ancestors,  the  northern  barbarians,  he  has  come  out 
to  the  combat  naked,  without  shield  or  weapon. 
And  the  other  beast,  "the  thousand-headed  hydra, 
the  mukitudinous  spawn,"  of  the  bourgeoisie  of 
the  past  and  the  present,  watches  the  young  Scyth- 
ian from  the  steps  of  the  ancient  amphitheater. 

"And  through  his  side,  the  last  drops,  ebbing  slow. 
From  the  red  gash,  fall  heavy  one  by  one,  .  .  . 

And  now 
The  arena  swims  around  him, — he  is  gone.  .  ,  . 

He  heeded  not — 
His  eyes  were  with  his  heart,  and  that  was  far  away." 

Hertzen's  vision  before  death  is  of  Russia  as  "a 
land  of  free  existence"  and  of  the  Russian  peasant 
commune  as  the  salvation  of  the  world.  He  took 
his  old  love  for  a  new  faith,  but,  it  would  seem,  at 
the  last  minute  understood  that  even  this  last  faith 
was  a  deception.  If  faith  deceived  him,  however, 
love  did  not;  in  his  love  for  Russia  there  was  some 
true  foresight:  not  the  peasant  commune,  but  a 
Christian  sociality  may,  indeed,  be  the  new  faith 
which  the  young  barbarians  will  bring  to  old  Rome. 

But  in  the  meantime,  the  dying  man  is  still  dying, 
— without  any  faith: 

"Forgive,  0  Rome  corrupt!     Forgive,  0  native  land!" 
In  the  fate  of  Hertzen,  the  greatest  Russian  intel- 


50  THE  IVIENACE  OF  THE  MOB 

ligent,  is  forecast  a  question  on  which  depends  the 
fate  of  the  whole  Russian  intelligentzia:  will  it 
comprehend  that  only  in  the  coming  Christianity 
consists  the  power  capable  of  conquering  bourgeoi- 
sie and  the  coming  rabble?  If  it  will  compre- 
hend, then  it  shall  be  the  first  confessor  and  martyr 
of  a  new  world;  but  if  not,  then,  like  Hertzen,  it 
shall  be  only  the  last  warrior  of  the  old  world,  the 
dying  gladiator. 


W' 


III 

'  '^^  "^^  "^HEN  they  are  saying  Peace  and 
safety,  then  sudden  destruction 
cometh  upon  them."  This  proph- 
ecy has  never  seemed  nearer  its  fulfillment  than  in 
our  day. 

At  the  same  time  that  the  South,  in  the  person 
of  Russia,  is  concluding  a  peace  with  the  East, 
and  all  the  nations  are  repeating:  peace,  peace, — 
a  war-like  meeting  takes  place  in  Swinemiinde. 
Two  of  the  most  enlightened  nations  came  together 
only  to  show  their  mailed  fists  to  each  other.  Just 
as  if  two  beasts  of  prey  had  stolen  up  to  each 
other,  put  their  muzzles  together,  and,  snarling 
and  baring  their  teeth,  sniffed  each  other,  had 
bristled  up,  all  ready  for  a  lunge  to  tear  each  other, 
and,  backing  away,  had  silently  gone  their  ways. 

This  is  not  an  actuality,  but  an  idealized  sign  of 
modern  European  culture.  External  policies  are 
only  a  cynical  exposure  of  the  internal.  "By  their 
fruits  shall  ye  know  them."  The  fruit  of  internal, 
spiritual  bourgeoisie  is  external,  international  bru- 
tality,— militarism,  chauvinism. 

51 


52  THE  MENACE  OF  THE  MOB 

The  ancient  she-wolf  of  Rome,  too,  had  sharp 
teeth,  and  a  blood-thirsty  rapacity  in  politics. 
But  when  it  came  to  certain  ideas  held  in  common 
— Pax  romana,  the  idea  of  a  universal  peace,  and 
the  Eternal  City,  the  incarnation  of  eternal  Reason, 
— Rome  paused,  and  reverently  lowered  before 
these  unalterable  sanctities  its  fasces,  the  insignia 
of  its  legions  with  the  all-conquering  eagles.  And 
in  the  darkest  night  of  mediaeval  barbarism,  in 
the  midst  of  feudal  intestine  dissension,  the  nations 
ceased  war  and  laid  down  their  arms  at  the  beck 
of  a  meek  old  man,  a  Roman  pontiff  who  brought 
to  their  minds  the  will  of  Christ:  "There  shall  be 
one  fold,  and  one  shepherd." 

Now  there  is  neither  the  empire  of  Rome,  nor  a 
Roman  church.  There  is  no  idea  held  in  common, 
no  common  sanctity.  Over  the  "Christian"  king- 
doms— these  old  gothic  shops — still  rears  here  and 
there  the  half-rotted  wooden  cross  of  Protestantism, 
or  the  corroded  brazen  cross  of  Catholicism;  but 
no  longer  does  any  one  pay  the  least  attention  to 
them.  The  religion  of  modern  Europe  is  not 
Christianity,  but  bourgeoisie.  From  the  prudence 
of  well-fed  bourgeoisie  to  an  insane,  famishing 
brutality  is  only  one  step.  Not  only  is  man  a  wolf 
to  man,  but  nation  to  nation  as  well.  Only  a  mu- 
tual fear  restrains  them  from  a  mutual  devouring; 


THE  MENACE  OF  THE  MOB  53 

the  rein  is  entirely  too  weak  for  the  infuriated 
beasts.  If  not  to-day,  then  to-morrow  they  shall 
spring  upon  each  other,  and  there  shall  begin  a 
slaughter  the  like  of  which  has  never  been  before. 

A  French  writer,  Villiers  de  L'isle-Adam,  has  a 
fantastic  story  of  tvvo  neighboring  towns,  peopled 
with  good,  honest  burghers  and  shop-keepers;  quar- 
reling over  some  trifle  town  goes  to  war  against 
town,  and,  despite  their  cowardice — or  in  conse- 
quence of  their  cowardice, — the  shop-keepers  ex- 
terminate the  shop-keepers  so,  that  of  the  whole 
prosperous  bourgeoisie  culture  only  scraps  and 
ends  are  left. 

The  international  politics  of  modern  Europe  re- 
mind one  of  the  politics  of  these  cowardly  and  fero- 
cious shop-keepers. 

When  one  looks  upon  the  faces  of  those  in  whose 
hands  lies  the  fate  of  Europe,  one  recalls  the 
prophecies  of  Mill  and  Hertzen  about  the  inevit- 
able victory  of  a  spiritual  China.  Before  there 
have  been  monsters  in  history — Tamerlanes,  At- 
tilas,  Borgias.  Now  there  are  no  monsters — just 
men,  like  all  men.  Instead  of  a  scepter, — a  yard- 
stick; instead  of  a  Bible, — a  ledger;  instead  of  an 
altar, — a  counter.  What  self-satisfied  vulgarity 
and  insipidity  in  the  expression  of  the  faces!  One 
gazes,   and  wonders  with  a  great  wonder,  as  the 


54  THE  MENACE  OF  THE  MOB 

Apocalypse  has  it:  ^  Whence  have  sprung  these 
crowned  lackeys,  these  triumphant  beasts? 

Yes,  bourgeoisie  has  made  fearful  successes  in 
Europe  since  the  time  of  Hertzen  and  Mill. 

All  the  nobility  of  culture,  having  withdrawn 
from  the  province  of  public  affairs,  has  concen- 
trated itself  in  isolated  personalities,  in  such  great 
eremites  as  Nietzsche,  Ibsen,  Flaubert,  and — still 
the  most  youthful  of  the  young — the  aged  Goethe. 
In  the  midst  of  the  even  plain  of  bourgeoisie,  these 
bottomless  artesian  wells  of  humanity  witness  that 
under  the  parched  earth  living  waters  are  hidden 
still.  But  a  geological  upheaval,  an  earthquake, 
is  necessary  that  the  subterranean  waters  may  burst 
forth  and  flood  the  plain,  carry  away  the  ant-hills, 
overturn  the  old  shops  of  bourgeois  Europe.  But 
meanwhile  there  is  a  dead  drought. 

And,  just  as  soon  as  they  come  out  of  the  circle 
of  individual  culture,  and  touch  upon  sociality, 
even  these  great  anchorites  of  European  genius  lose 
their  nobility,  become  trivial,  shallow,  exhausted, 
like  rivers  of  the  plains  come  upon  sands. 

When  Goethe  speaks  of  the  French  Revolution, 

1  "I  wondered  with  great  admiration."  Revelation,  XVII,  6. 
The  archaic  meaning  of  admiration,  as  defined  by  Webster,  is 
wonder,  astonishment.    Trans. 


THE  MENACE  OF  THE  MOB  55 

he  suddenly  droops  down  to  the  earth;  as  if  through 
some  evil  enchantment  the  giant  flattens  down, 
shrivels  into  a  dwarf;  from  a  Hellenic  demi-god  he 
becomes  a  German  burgher,  and— may  the  shade 
of  the  Olympian  forgive  me! — a  German  philister, 
"Herr  von-Goethe,"  a  privy  councilor  to  a  duke  of 
Weimar  and  an  honest  son  of  an  honest  shop-keeper 
of  Frankfort.  When  Flaubert  asserts:  la  politique 
est  faite  pour  la  canaille, — one  recalls  with  sad- 
ness the  salon  of  the  Princess  Mathilda  and  other 
gilt  pig-sties  of  the  Second  Empire,  where  this 
Simeon  the  Stylite  of  aesthetics  cast  pearls  before 
the  swine,  preaching  his  new  oligarchy  of  "the 
mandarins  of  learning."  When  Nietzsche  makes 
eyes  not  merely  at  Bismarck,  but  the  Russian  auto- 
crat as  well,  as  the  greatest  manifestation  of  "the 
Will  to  Might,"  Wille  zur  Macht,  in  the  midst  of 
modern  European  impotence, — then,  on  the  pale 
brow  of  "the  crucified  Dionysos"  also  appears  the 
same  black  spot  of  bourgeois  contamination.  The 
noblest,  because  the  frankest,  of  all  seems  Ibsen, 
who  expressed  his  attitude  toward  sociality  in  a 
few  words:  An  Enemy  of  the  People. 

But  the  friends  of  the  people,  such  genial  leaders 
of  democracy  as  Lasalle,  Engels,  Marx,  while 
preaching  socialism  not  only  do  not  warn  prac- 


56  THE  MENACE  OF  THE  MOB 

tically,  but  even  theoretically  do  not  foresee  that 
danger  of  "a  new  China,"  "a  spiritual  bourgeoisie," 
which  Hertzen  and  Mill  feared  so  greatly. 

And  in  answer  to  the  socialists  resounds  the  fear- 
ful song  of  the  new  troglodytes: 

"Vive  le  son,  vive  le  son 
De  Vexplosion!" 

Anarchism  is  the  last  spasm,  no  longer  of  social, 
but  of  individual  revolt  against  the  unbearable 
weight  of  state  bourgeoisie. 

At  one  time  such  singers  of  solitary  despair  as 
Leopardi  and  Byron  plumbed  all  the  depth  of  the 
world's  sorrow,  bound  up  with  this  downfall  of 
European  sociality.  Now  there  is  no  one  whose 
eye  could  plumb  this  depth:  it  has  proven  bottom- 
less. In  silence  the  seeing  pass  around  it;  the 
blind  fall  into  it  silently. 

But  here  our  gaze,  in  a  last  despair  or  with  a 
final  hope,  even  as  the  gaze  of  Hertzen,  "the  dying 
gladiator,"  involuntarily  turns  from  one  of  "our 
two  native  lands,"  from  Europe  to  Russia — from 
the  dark  South  to  the  East,  darker  still  though  al- 
ready ensanguined  either  with  the  dawn  or  a  con- 
flagration. For  Hertzen  this  "light  of  the  East" 
was  a  resurrection  of  "the  peasant  commune";  for 
us  it  is  a  resurrection  of  Christian  sociality.     And 


THE  MENACE  OF  THE  MOB  57 

here  again  arises  at  the  beginning  of  the  twentieth 
century  the  question  put  in  the  middle  of  the  nine- 
teenth: Will  Russia  conquer  bourgeoisie,  the  un- 
conquered  of  Europe? 


T 


IV 

' *^  ■  ^HE  Russian  intelligentzia  is  the  best  in 
the  world,"  declared  Gorky  recently. 
I  will  not  say  this;  not  because  I  do 

not  desire  it,  or  think  so,  but  because  it  is  embar- 
assing  to  praise  one's  self.  For  both  Gorky  and  I 
are  Russian  intelligents.  And  consequently  it  is 
not  for  us  to  assert  that  the  Russian  intelligent  is 
the  very  best  of  all  possible  intelligents  in  the  best 
of  all  possible  worlds.  Such  an  optimism  is  dan- 
gerous, especially  in  these  times  in  Russia,  when 
every  frog  is  praising  its  own  bog.  No,  it  is  bet- 
ter according  to  the  other  adage:  Whom  I  love,  I 
chastise.  It  is  more  painful,  but  more  wholesome. 
And  so,  I  do  not  undertake  to  decide  whether  the 
Russian  intelligentzia  is  a  miracle  or  a  monster;  I 
only  know  that  it  is,  indeed,  a  thing  unique  in 
modern  European  culture. 

Bourgeoisie  has  seized  all  sociality  in  Europe; 
individual  personalities  flee  from  it  into  the  nobil- 
ity of  higher  culture.  In  Russia  it  is  just  the  oppo- 
site: individual  personalities  are  not  guarded  from 

59 


60  THE  MENACE  OF  THE  MOB 

bourgeoisie  by  the  low  level  of  our  culture;  but 
then  our  sociality  is  noble  through  and  through. 

"Indeed,  there  is  something  insane  in  our  life: 
but  there  is  nothing  vulgar,  nothing  bourgeois." 

If  to  this  be  added:  not  in  our  personal,  but  our 
public  life, — then  these  words  of  Hertzen,  spoken 
half  a  century  ago,  remain  true  to  the  present  day. 

Russian  sociality  is  noble  through  and  through 
because  it  is  tragic  through  and  through.  The  sub- 
stance of  tragedy  is  opposed  to  the  substance  of  the 
idyll.  The  source  of  all  bourgeoisie  is  an  idyllic 
welfare,  even  though  in  bad  taste;  "a  golden 
dream,"  even  though  of  Chinese  gilt  tinsel.  Trag- 
edy, the  veritable  iron  of  the  crucifying  nails,  is 
the  source  of  all  nobility,  that  ruby-red  blood  which 
maketh  all  those  who  receive  its  sacrament  of  "the 
blood  royal."  The  existence  of  the  Russian  intel- 
ligentzia is  a  continual  unhappiness,  a  continual 
tragedy  J 
/  It  would  seem  that  there  is  in  the  world  no  situa- 
tion more  helpless  than  that  in  which  the  Russian 
intelligentzia  has  found  itself — a  position  between 
two  pressures:  a  pressure  from  above,  of  the  auto- 
cratic order;  and  a  pressure  from  below,  of  the 
dark  element  of  the  people,  not  so  much  hating  as 
not  understanding — but  at  times  failure  to  under- 
stand is  worse  than  any  hatred.     Between  these  two 


THE  MENACE  OF  THE  MOB  61 

fearful  pressures  Russian  sociality  is  grinding,  like 
the  clean  wheat  of  God, — if  God  wills,  it  will  be 
ground  and  there  shall  be  meal,  the  meal  for  that 
bread  with  which,  at  last,  the  great  hunger  of  the 
people  shall  be  appeased;  but  in  the  meanwhile 
the  lot  of  the  Russian  intelligent  is  still  the  lot  of 
the  grain  of  wheat — to  be  crushed,  ground, — a 
tragic  lot.  There  is  no  longer  any  thought  of 
bourgeoisie — it  is  not  a  question  of  getting  off  well, 
but  of  getting  out  alive! 

Look  closely:  what  an  amorphous  state  of  society, 
indeed;  what  strange  personages! 

Here  is  a  young  man,  "poorly  dressed,  with  deli- 
cate features,"  the  murderer  of  a  usurious  old 
woman,  an  imitator  of  Napoleon,  a  student  who  has 
not  completed  his  education, — Rodion  Raskolni- 
kov.  Here  is  a  medical  student  who  disembowels 
with  his  scalpel  and  scepsis  live  frogs  and  dead 
philosophers,  and  preaches  Stoff  und  Kraft  with 
the  same  cut-throat  bravado  as  the  merry  men  of 
Stenka  Razin  upon  a  time  used  to  cry  Sarin  na 
kichku!  ^ — the  nihilist  Bazarov.  Here  is  a  noble- 
man-philosopher, grown  common  and  tilling  the 
soil — Nikolai  Levin.     Here  is  a  novice,  as  modest 

2  All  hands  to  the  proiv! — probably  as  a  preliminary  to  walking 
the  plank;  a  command  once  in  use  by  Volga  robbers  upon  cap- 
turing a  ship.    Trans. 


62  THE  MENACE  OF  THE  MOB 

as  a  girl — "a  red-cheeked  realist,"  "a  precocious 
philanthropist," — Alesha  Karamazov.  And  his 
brother  Ivan — the  precocious  misanthrope;  Ivan, 
— "the  inner  conscience."  And,  finally,  the  most 
unusual  of  them  all,  "the  man  from  the  under- 
world," with  lips  twisted  as  if  from  a  perpetual 
convulsion  of  maliciousness,  with  eyes  full  of  a 
new  love,  as  yet  unknown  to  the  world — the  love  of 
a  St.  John;  with  the  heavy  glance  of  an  epileptic; 
an  ex-convict  and  prisoner  at  the  Fortress  of  St. 
Peter;  a  future  unnatural  hybrid  of  the  reaction- 
ary with  the  terrorist — ^the  half-possessed,  half- 
sainted,  Fedor  Michailovitch  Dostoievsky. 

Behind  them  are  other,  nameless  ones, — faces  of 
a  still  more  severe,  classical  nobility,  as  if  hewn 
out  of  marble:  the  images  of  new  Harmodiuses  and 
Aristogitons,  Saint  Justs  and  Camille  Desmoulins, 
the  wroth  cherubim  of  national  tempests.  And 
there  are  maidens,  like  chaste  vestals,  like  new 
Judiths,  going  into  the  camp  of  Holofernes,  with 
prayer  at  heart  and  sword  in  hand. 

But  in  the  very  darkest  depth,  midst  the  thunder 
and  lightnings  of  our  Sinai,  on  the  fourteenth  of 
December,  are  the  already  well-nigh  inhuman  vis- 
ages of  the  first  prophets  and  the  forefathers  of 
Russian  liberty, — carvings  no  longer  of  marble 


THE  MENACE  OF  THE  MOB  63 

but  of  granite.     Is  it  not  the  same  granite  whose 
mass  the  Bronze  Horseman  ^  tramples? 

All  these  are  whatever  you  will,  but  not  bour- 
geois. If  Flaubert  had  dared  assert  in  their  pres- 
ence: la  politique  est  faite  pour  la  canaille^  he 
would  sooner  have  become  one  of  the  rabble  him- 
self than  have  made  them  into  a  rabble.  For 
them  politics  are  a  passion,  an  intoxication,  "a 
consuming  fire,"  in  which  the  will,  like  steel,  be- 
comes white-hot.  These  are  the  heroes  famed  m 
no  national  legends,  martyrs  recorded  in  no  church 
calendars, — but  veritable  heroes,  veritable  martyrs 
•till. 

"From  the  exulting  and  idly  chattering, 
Encrimsoning  their  hands  with  gore, 
Lead  me  away  to  the  camp  of  those  perishing 
For  the  great  work  of  love  they  adore." 

When  "the  great  work  of  love"  is  consummated, 
when  the  movement  for  liberation  which  they  have 
begun  and  are  carrying  on  is  ended, — only  then 
shall  Russia  understand  the  worth  of  these  men  and 
what  they  have  done. 

What,  then,  is  this  unprecedented  society,  the 
only  one  of  its  kind  in  tlie  world, — is  it  an  order, 

3  A  famous  statue  in  St.  Petersburg,  showing  Peter  the  Great 
on  a  rearing  horse.    Trans. 


64  THE  MENACE  OF  THE  MOB 

or  a  caste,  or  a  faith,  or  a  conspiracy?  This  is 
neither  a  caste,  nor  a  faith,  nor  a  conspiracy;  it 
is  all  of  them  in  one — it  is  the  Russian  intelli- 
gentzia. 

Wlience  has  it  appeared?  Who  created  it? 
The  same  one  who  created,  or  rather  gave  birth  to, 
all  of  the  new  Russia :  Peter  the  Great. 

I  have  already  spoken  once,  and  repeat  anew 
and  insist:  the  first  Russian  intelligent  was  Peter. 
He  has  imprinted,  struck  off,  as  on  the  bronze  of  a 
coin,  his  image  on  the  blood  and  body  of  the  Rus- 
sian intelligentzia.  The  sole  legitimate  heirs,  the 
children  of  Peter,  are  we,  all  Russian  intelligents. 
He  is  in  us;  we  are  in  him.  He  who  loves  Peter, 
loves  us;  he  who  hates  him,  hates  us  as  well. 

What  is  Peter?  A  miracle  or  a  monster? 
Again,  I  do  not  undertake  to  decide.  He  is  too 
dear  to  me,  too  much  a  part  of  myself,  for  me  to 
judge  of  him  impartially.  I  only  know — there 
will  be  no  other  Peter;  Russia  has  but  one  of  him; 
and  she  has  but  one  Russian  intelligentzia,  she 
will  have  no  other.  And  while  Peter  is  alive  in 
Russia,  the  great  Russian  intelligentzia  is  alive  as 
well. 

Every  day  we  perish.  We  have  many  enemies, 
few  friends.  Great  is  the  danger  threatening  us, 
but  great  also  is  our  hope:  Peter  is  with  us. 


AMID  all  the  sad  and  fearful  phenomena 
which  Russian  society  has  to  live  through 
of  late, — the  saddest  and  most  fearful  is 
that  savage  baiting  of  the  Russian  intelligentzia, 
which,  as  yet,  is  fortunately  taking  place  only  in 
the  dark  and  obscure  underground  cellars  of  the 
Russian  press. 

Is  the  Russian  intelligentzia  necessary  to  Rus- 
sia? The  question  is  so  absurd,  that  it  seems,  at 
times,  not  worth  while  answering.  Who  are  those 
who  ask  save  the  intelligents  themselves?  Doubt- 
ing the  Russian  intelligentzia's  right  to  existence, 
they  doubt  their  own  right  to  existence, — however, 
perhaps  they  do  well,  because  the  degree  of  their 
own  "intelligence"  is  too  insignificant.  Verily, 
there  is  'something  suicidal  in  this  baiting,  border- 
ing on  violent  mania,  for  which  are  necessary  not 
the  deductions  of  reason,  but  a  strait -jacket. 
There  are  times,  however,  when  there  is  nothing 
left  for  reason  itself  save  to  put  on  this  strait- 
jacket  against  the  violence  of  the  insane. 

65 


66  THE  MENACE  OF  THE  MOB 

Amid  the  inarticulate  lamentations  and  revile- 
ments  can  be  made  out  only  one  accusation  having 
some  faint  resemblance  of  reasoning, — the  accusa- 
tion of  "groundlessness,"  of  a  detachment  from  the 
famous  "three  estates,"  the  three  leviathans  of  na- 
tional life. 

Here,  if  you  will,  is  not  only  "groundlessness," 
we  are  ready  to  agree, — here  is  an  abyss,  the  same 
"abyss"  over  which  the  Bronze  Horseman  has  "up- 
reared"  Russia — all  of  Russia,  and  not  merely  the 
Russian  intelligentzia.  Let  her  accusers,  then,  say 
directly:  Peter  is  not  a  Russian.  But  in  such  a 
case  we  "groundless"  intelligents  will  prefer  to 
remain  with  Peter,  and  with  Pushkin,  who  loved 
Peter  as  if  he  were  the  nearest  of  kin,  rather  than 
remain  with  those  to  whom  Peter  and  Pushkin  are 
strangers. 

"The  Russian  is  fearfully  free  in  spirit,'  says 
Dostoievsky,  pointing  to  Peter.  In  just  this  fear- 
ful freedom  of  spirit,  in  this  ability  to  break  away 
suddenly  from  the  earth,  from  existence  and  his- 
tory, to  burn  all  its  ships,  to  break  up  all  its  past 
in  the  name  of  an  unknown  future, — in  just  this 
spontaneous  groundlessness  consists  one  of  the  deep- 
est particularities  of  the  Russian  spirit.  It  is  very 
difficult  to  move  us;  but  once  we  have  moved,  we 
reach  the  extreme  in  everything,  in  good  and  evil, 


THE  MENACE  OF  THE  MOB  67 

in  truth  and  falsehood,  in  wisdom  and  insanity. 
"All  we  Russians  love  to  wander  along  brinks  and 
precipices,"  complained  even  in  the  seventeenth 
century  our  first  Slavophile,  Knijanin.  A  partic- 
ularity very  dangerous,  perhaps,  but  what  is  to  be 
done?  To  be  one's  own  self  is  not  always  devoid 
of  danger.  To  deny  one's  self  is  to  become  not 
merely  "groundless,"  but  impersonal,  incapable. 
This  resembles  a  paradox,  but  at  times  it  seems  as 
if  our  "groundlings,"  independents,  and  national- 
ists are  far  less  Russian  than  our  nihilists  and  de- 
niers,  our  intellectual  "runners"  and  "no-sayers." 
Self-denial,  self-consuming,  are  inconceivable,  im- 
possible anywhere  save  Russia.  Between  the  arch- 
presbyter  Awacuum,  ready  to  be  burned  and  to 
burn  others  for  the  old  faith,  and  the  anarchist 
Bakunin,  proposing,  during  the  revolution  of  Dres- 
den, to  put  out  on  the  walls  of  the  besieged  town 
the  Sistine  Madonna  as  a  protection  against  the 
Prussian  bombs, — the  Prussians,  d'ye  see,  being 
educated  people,  will  not  dare  to  shoot  at  Raphael, 
— between  these  two  Russian  extremes  there  is  far 
more  in  common  than  would  appear  at  first  sight. 
Pushkin  compared  Peter  with  Robespierre  and 
in  Peter's  reorganization  saw  "a  revolution  from 
above,"  "a  white  terror."  Indeed,  Peter  is  not 
only  the  first  Russian  intelligent,  but  the  first  Rus- 


68  THE  MENACE  OF  THE  MOB 

sian  nihilist  as  well.  When  the  "archdeacon  of 
the  all-fools'  cathedral"  scoffs  at  the  greatest  na- 
tional sanctities,  it  is  a  nihilism  far  more  daring 
and  dangerous  than  the  nihilism  of  Pisarev  when 
he  scatters  Pushkin  right  and  left. 

The  Russian  peasant  Dukhobortzi,  upon  finding 
themselves  somewheres  at  the  world's  end — in  Can- 
ada— set  their  cattle  free  and  harnessed  themselves 
to  the  plows,  out  of  mercy  for  the  animals, — is  this 
not  "groundlessness"?  And,  at  the  same  time,  are 
these  not  Russian  people?  "Dukhoborchestvo," — 
an  excessive  spirituality,  distractedness;  a  rational- 
ism, reaching  to  the  limits  of  its  deductions,  to  the 
edge  of  the  "abyss," — revealing  itself  in  the  sec- 
tarianism of  our  common  people,  reveals  itself  in 
our  intelligentzia  as  well.  The  nihilist  Bazarov 
says,  "When  I  die,  a  burdock  will  grow."  Nil 
Sorsky  orders  in  his  will  not  to  bury  him,  but  to 
throw  him  somewhere  in  a  field,  like  a  "dead 
hound":  in  both  cases,  regardless  of  the  difference 
in  the  conclusions,  there  is  the  very  same  uncon- 
scious metaphysics — the  ascetic  contempt  of  the 
spirit  for  the  flesh.  The  intelligents'  "groundless- 
ness"— a  deflected  idealism — is  one  of  the  final, 
but  very  vital,  off-shoots  of  a  national  asceticism. 

The  misfortune  of  the  Russian  intelligentzia  is 
not  in  that  it  is  not  sufficiently,  but  that  it  is  exceed- 


t 


THE  MENACE  OF  THE  MOB  69 

ingly  Russian,  Russian  only.  When  Dostoievsky 
sought  the  "all-man,"  the  universal  man,  in  the 
depths  of  the  Russian,  he  felt  and  wanted  to  fore- 
stall this  danger. 

"Groundlessness"  is  a  trait  genuinely  Russian, 
but,  be  it  understood,  as  yet  not  of  all  Russia,  of 
course.  It  is  only  one  of  the  contradictory  ex- 
tremes which  so  amazingly  dwell  together  in  Rus- 
sia. Side  by  side  with  the  intelligents  and  the  na- 
tional Dukhobor-rationalists,  are  the  intelligent  and 
national  mystics  of  the  Khlisty  sect. 

Side  by  side  with  the  excessively  sober  are  the 
excessively  intoxicated.  Beside  the  Russia,  ex- 
tending into  the  distance  like  a  somewhat  drear  and 
gray  plain,  the  everyday  Russia  of  Pisarev  and 
Chernishevsky: 

"These  poor  settlements, 
This  scanty  nature," 

there  is  a  Russia  of  the  heights  and  of  the  under- 
ground, extending  up  to  the  summit  and  down  into 
the  depths,  a  mysterious,  starry,  nocturnal  Russia 
of  Dostoievsky  and  Lermontov: 

"Night  is  still;  and  all  the  desert  hearkens 
Unto  God;  and  star  to  star  converses.  .  .  ." 

Which  of  these  two  Russias  is  authentic?  Both 
are  equally  authentic. 


70  THE  MENACE  OF  THE  MOB 

Their  separation  has  at  present  reached  its  final 
limits.  How  they  are  to  be  united? — That  is  the 
great  question  of  the  future. 


VI 

THE  second  accusation,  bound  up  with  the 
first  one  of  "groundlessness,"  is  the  "God- 
lessness"  of  the  Russian  intelligentzia. 

It  is  scarcely  a  simple  coincidence  that  this  accu- 
sation of  Godlessness  proceeds  almost  always  from 
people  of  whom  it  has  been  said:  "These  people 
honor  me  with  their  lips,  but  their  heart  is  far 
from  me." 

Of  the  Russian  intelligentzia  one  wants  to  say 
at  times:  "With  their  lips  they  do  not  honor  me,  but 
their  hearts  are  not  far  from  me." 

Faith  and  a  consciousness  of  faith  are  not  one 
and  the  same.  Not  all  those  who  intend  to  believe, 
believe;  and  not  all  those  who  intend  not  to  be- 
lieve, do  not  believe.  The  Russian  intelligentzia 
as  yet  has  no  religious  consciousness,  has  not  been 
confessed,  but  there  is  already  a  great  and  con- 
stantly growing  thirst  for  religion.  "Blessed  are 
they  that  hunger  and  thirst  after  righteousness:  for 
they  shall  be  filled." 

There  exist  many  opposite  ways  to  God,  not  only 

71 


72  THE  MENACE  OF  THE  MOB 

positive  but  also  negative.  The  God-wrestling  of 
Jacob,  the  murmuring  of  Job,  the  unbelief  of 
Thomas, — all  these  are  authentic  ways  to  God. 

Let  the  Russian  intelligents  be  "publicans  and 
sinners" — the  last  of  the  last.  "Publicans  and  sin- 
ners go  into  the  kingdom  of  God  before"  those 
pharisees  and  scribes  who  "shut  up  the  kingdom 
of  heaven  against  men:  for  ye  neither  go  in  your- 
selves, neither  suffer  ye  them  that  are  entering  to 
go  in.  .  .  .  'The  last  shall  be  first.'  Neither  suf- 
fer ye  them  that  are  entering  to  go  in." 

At  times  it  seems  that  this  very  atheism  of  the 
Russian  intelligenzia  is  some  peculiar,  mystical 
atheism.  Here  it  has  the  same  denial  of  religion 
as  Bakunin's,  passing  into  a  religion  of  denial; 
the  same  tragic  halving  of  mind  and  heart,  like 
Hertzen's:  the  mind  rejects,  the  heart  seeks,  God. 

A  great  void  is  necessary  for  a  great  filling.  Is 
not  the  "Godlessness"  of  the  Russian  intelligentzia 
the  void  of  a  deep  vessel  which  awaits  filling? 

"And  there  were  s-et  there  six  waterpots  of  stone 

•      •      • 

"Jesus  saith  unto  them.  Fill  the  waterpots  with 
water.     And  they  filled  them  up  to  the  brim. 

"And  he  saith  unto  them,  Draw  out  now,  and 
bear  unto  the  governor  of  the  feast.  And  they 
bare  it. 


THE  MENACE  OF  THE  MOB  73 

"When  the  ruler  of  the  feast  had  tasted  the 
water  that  was  made  wine,  .  .  .  the  governor  of 
the  feast  called  the  bridegroom, 

"And  saith  unto  him.  Every  man  at  the  begin- 
ning doth  set  forth  good  wine;  and  when  men  have 
well  drunk,  then  that  which  is  worst:  thou  hast  kept 
the  good  wine  until  now." 

Our  hope  is  in  that  our  Cana  of  Galilee  is  be- 
fore us:  our  waterpots  yet  stand  empty;  we  are 
drinking  the  worse  wine,  but  Architriclion  has  kept 
the  good  until  now. 

Dostoievsky,  recalling  in  some  way  after  thirty 
years  one  of  his  conversations  with  Belinsky,  ex- 
claims with  as  much  indignation  as  if  the  conver- 
sation had  taken  place  only  yesterday:  "This  man 
reviled  Christ  in  my  presence!" 

And  he  makes  a  frantic  inference: 

"Belinsky  is  the  most  stupid  and  most  fetid  phe- 
nomenon of  Russian  life."  There  is  some  dread- 
ful misunderstanding  here.  That  Belinsky  could 
revile  Christ  is  a  dreadful  thing.  But  it  is  per- 
haps still  more  dreadful  that,  on  the  basis  of  these 
revilings,  Dostoievsky  after  thirty  years  could  pro- 
nounce such  a  sentence  over  Belinsky,  not  having 
understood  that  even  if  this  man — consumed  like 
a  candle  before  Some  One,  Whom  he  did  not  know 
after  all,  nor  could  call  by  name, — was  not  with 


74  THE  MENACE  OF  THE  MOB 

Christ,  Christ  was  with  him.  "And  whosoever 
shall  speak  a  word  against  the  Son  of  Man,  it  shall 
be  forgiven  him."  When  Belinsky  uprose  against 
Gogol,  because  in  his  Correspondence  With  Friends 
Gogol  tried  to  consecrate  serfdom  in  the  name  of 
Christ,  Belinsky,  "reviling"  Christ,  was  of  course 
then  nearer  to  Him  than  Gogol,  the  shriven  of 
Christ. 

Of  the  Russian  intelligentzia,  at  times,  the  same 
may  be  said  as  of  Belinsky:  as  yet  it  is  not  with 
Christ,  but  Christ  is  already  with  it. 

We  ought  not,  of  course,  reassure  ourselves  with 
this:  He  stands  at  the  door  and  knocks;  but  if  we 
hear  Him  not  and  do  not  open, — He  shall  go  away 
to  others. 


VII 

THE  "Godlessness"  of  the  Russian  intelli- 
gentzia is  dependent  upon  a  deficiency  not 
of  all  its  entity,  but  of  only  some  part  of  it, 
— not  in  its  feeling,  conscience,  will;  but  in  its 
judgment,  in  the  mind,  the  intellectus,  i.  e.,  just 
that  which  makes  the  intelligentzia  the  intelligent- 
zia. 

It  may  be  that  this  word  in  itself  does  not  coin- 
cide altogether  exactly  with  the  sweep  of  the  under- 
standing. The  power  of  the  Russian  intelligentzia 
is  not  in  the  intellectus,  the  mind,  but  in  the  heart 
and  conscience.  Its  heart  and  conscience  are 
nearly  always  in  the  right  path;  the  mind  often 
strays.  The  heart  and  conscience  are  free;  the 
mind  is  bound.  The  heart  and  conscience  are  fear- 
less and  "radical";  the  mind  is  timid,  and  in  its 
very  radicalism  conservative  and  imitative.  With 
an  excess  of  social  sentiments  there  is  a  deficiency 
of  common  ideas.  All  these  Russian  nihilists,  ma- 
terialists, Marxists,  idealists,  realists, — are  only  the 
waves  of  a  spent  surge,  coming  from  the  North  * 
Sea  into  the  Baltic. 

*  Called  the  German  Sea  in  Russian.    Trans. 

75 


76  THE  MENACE  OF  THE  MOB 

"Whatever  the  last  book  to  him  may  but  say 
That  on  the  surface  of  his  soul  shall  stay." 

Just  take  our  Marxists,  for  instance.  There  is 
never  a  doubt  that  these  are  most  excellent  people. 
And  of  course  they  love  the  people  no  less  than  the 
nationalists  do.  But  when  they  talk  of  the  "iron 
law  of  economic  necessity,"  they  seem  the  ferocious 
priests  of  Marx-Moloch,  who  are  ready  to  sacrifice 
the  whole  Russian  nation.  And  they  have  talked 
themselves  into  the  willies.  They  have  become  re- 
pugnant not  only  to  others,  but  to  themselves  as 
well.  And  at  last,  they  took  their  Marx,  their 
little  god,  by  his  little  leg, — and  crash  against  the 
ground  with  him.  Or,  as  another  adage  has  it:  a 
worthless  god  is  licked  even  by  calves, — the  Bern- 
stein calves  are  licking  the  neglected  Marx. 

The  Marxian  cant  dragged  on  and  on — and  then 
that  of  the  tramps  began  to  drag. 

At  first  we  thought  that  the  tramps,  at  least,  would 
be  an  independent  phenomenon.  But  when  we 
looked  and  listened  more  carefully,  we  found  that, 
just  as  the  Russian  Marxists  were  repeating  Marx, 
the  German,  the  Russian  tramps  also  were  repeat- 
ing Nietzsche,  the  German.  The  tramps  took  one 
half  of  Nietzsche — our  decadents-orgiasts  took  the 
other.  "Dancing  Foot"  had  not  yet  had  time  to 
hide,  before  the  worshippers  of  the  new  Dionysos 


THE  MENACE  OF  THE  MOB  77 

began  to  chant:  "Raise  higher  your  dithyrambic 
legs!"  *  One  German  cut  in  two  suffices  for  two 
Russian  derniers  cris. 

Looking  upon  all  these  innocent  intellectual 
games  side  by  side  with  the  deepest  moral  and 
social  tragedy,  one  wants  at  times  to  cry  out  in 
involuntary  vexation:  Hearts  of  gold,  heads  of 
clay! 

But  the  aesthetics  is  wooden.  "Boots  above 
Shakespeare" — no  one,  of  course,  will  say  this  in 
so  many  words  now,  but  it  has  stuck  somewhere  in 
the  sinuosities  of  our  physiology,  and,  willy-nilly, 
but  it  will  tell  in  an  "evil  eye"  against  all  outward 
aesthetic  form  as  a  useless  luxury.  Not  that  we 
assert  directly:  the  beautiful  is  immoral;  but  we 
are  too  much  accustomed  to  the  moral  being  ugly; 
too  easily  reconciled  to  this  contradiction.  If  our 
ethics  is  "Shakespeare,"  then  our  aesthetics  is  at 
times  really  not  much  above  "boots."  In  any 
case,  Pisarev's  "destruction  of  aesthetics"  is,  it  is  to 
be  regretted,  deeply  national.  It  is  in  the  nature 
of  Russia,  of  Great  Russia;  a  grayish  sky,  grayish 
weekdays — 

"Fir-woods,  pines,  and  sand." 
And  here,  in  the  mind,  the  intellectus,  as  well  as 

»  V.  IvANOV,  The  Religion  of  Dionysos,  in  The  Problems  of  Life. 


78  THE  MENACE  OF  THE  MOB 

in  the  heart  and  wiH  of  our  intelligentzia,  is  the 
same  national  leaning  toward  asceticism,  to  Duk- 
hoborchestvo ;  a  monkish  fear  of  flesh  and  blood, 
a  fear  of  all  nakedness  and  beauty  as  a  tempta- 
tion of  the  fiend.  Hence — with  a  truly  religious 
regard  for  outward,  social  liberty, — there  is  a  dis- 
respect for  inner,  personal  liberty.  And  hence  the 
intolerance  of  the  most  radical  of  radicals  for 
schismatics  and  statute-makers;  the  mutual  eaves- 
dropping, lest  some  one  eat  meat  at  Lent,  or  be- 
come filthy  with  the  filth  of  the  world.  And  so 
those  without  priests  are  realists,  and  the  idealists 
believe  in  priests,  and  the  Theodosians  are  Marx- 
ists, and  the  Molokan  sectarians  are  nationalists; 
and  every  order,  every  persuasion,  eats  out  of  its 
own  bowl,  and  drinks  out  of  a  separate  little  "image 
lamp,"  holding  no  communion  with  the  heretics. 
And  all  have  the  same  fast — an  abstract,  rational- 
istic xerophagy.  "We  taste  no  meat;  we  drink  no 
wine." 

There  is  a  legend  that  the  holy  Seraphim  Sarov- 
ski  subsisted  for  many  years  upon  snitka — a  sort 
of  swamp-grass.  All  these  realisms,  idealisms, 
monisms,  pluralisms,  empiriocriticisras,  and  other 
dried  "isms"  upon  which  the  Russian  intelligentzia 
subsists  even  to  this  day  are  reminiscent  of  the 
snitka  grass. 


THE  MENACE  OF  THE  MOB  79 

All  faces  have  become  crest-fallen  from  this  in- 
tellectual hunger — crest-fallen,  and  pale,  and  wan. 
All  are  the  "gloomy  people"  of  Chekhov.  The 
sun  is  already  rising  in  their  hearts,  but  "dusk"  is 
still  in  their  thoughts;  flaming  fire  is  in  their  hearts, 
but  a  cooling  warmth,  lukewarm  water,  a  warmed- 
up  German  Habersuppe  in  their  thoughts;  riotous 
youth  in  their  hearts,  but  a  resigned  old  age  in  their 
thoughts. 

At  times,  looking  at  these  young  ancients,  these 
intelligent  ascetics  and  fasters,  one  longs  to  cry 
out: 

"Dear  Russian  youths!  You  are  noble,  honest, 
sincere.  You  are  our  hope,  you  are  the  salvation 
and  future  of  Russia.  Why,  then,  are  your  faces 
so  sad,  your  eyes  so  cast  down?  Be  merry,  smile; 
lift  up  your  heads  and  look  the  devil  straight  in 
the  eyes.  Fear  not  the  foolish  old  devil  of  political 
reaction,  who  still  glimmers  before  you,  now  in 
heathen  aesthetics,  now  in  Christian  mysticism. 
Fear  no  temptations,  no  trials,  no  freedom, — not 
only  external,  social  freedom,  but  the  inner,  per- 
sonal freedom  as  well,  because  without  the  second 
the  first  is  also  impossible.  Fear  but  one  thing: 
bondage;  and  the  worst  of  all  bondages,  that  of 
bourgeoisie,  and  the  worst  of  all  bourgeoisies,  that 
of  the  rabble;  for  the  slave  come  into  power  is  a 


80  THE  MENACE  OF  THE  MOB 

beast,  and  the  beast  come  into  power  is  the  devil, — 
no  longer  the  old,  the  fantastic,  but  a  new,  a  real 
devil,  truly  frightful,  more  frightful  than  he  is 
painted, — the  coming  prince  of  this  world,  the 
"Coming  Beast." 


o 


VIII 

'  * ^~^\^  UR  struggle  is  not  against  the  blood 
and  the  flesh,  but  against  the  powers 
and  authorities,  against  the  world 
rulers  of  the  darkness  of  this  age,  the  spirits  of 
evil  on  this  earth." 

And  the  world  ruler  of  this  age  is  the  bourgeoisie 
coming  into  power,  the  Coming  Beast. 

This  Beast  in  Russia  has  three  faces. 

The  first — of  the  present — is  over  us:  the  face  of 
autocracy,  the  dead  positivism  of  bureaucracy,  the 
Chinese  Wall  of  the  table  of  ranks,  separating  the 
Russian  people  from  the  Russian  intelligentzia  and 
the  Russian  church. 

The  second  face — of  the  past — alongside  of  us, 
is  the  face  of  orthodoxy,  rendering  unto  Caesar  that 
which  is  God's;  that  church  of  which  Dostoievsky 
said  that  it  was  in  "a  paralysis."  "Our  bishops 
are  so  bridled  that  you  can  lead  them  where  you 
will,"  complained  one  Russian  prelate  of  the  eigh- 
teenth century;  and  modem  prelates  could  say  the 
same  with  a  still  greater  right.     Spiritual  bondage 

is  in  the  very  fountain-head  of  every  liberty;  spirit- 
si 


82  THE  MENACE  OF  THE  MOB 

ual  bourgeoisie  is  in  the  fountain-head  of  every 
nobility.  The  dead  positivism  of  orthodox  bu- 
reaucracy is  in  the  service  of  the  positivism  of  auto- 
cratic bureaucracy. 

The  third  face — of  the  future — is  imder  us;  the 
face  of  beastliness,  coming  up  from  below, — of 
the  hooligans,  of  trampdom,  of  the  black  hundred, 
— the  most  fearful  of  the  three  faces. 

These  three  beginnings  of  spiritual  bourgeoisie 
have  united  against  the  three  beginnings  of  spirit- 
ual nobility:  against  the  land  and  people, — the 
living  body;  against  the  church, — the  living  soul; 
against  the  intelligentzia, — the  living  spirit  of  Rus- 
sia. 

In  order  that  the  three  beginnings  of  spiritual 
nobility  and  freedom  may  in  their  turn  unite 
against  the  three  beginnings  of  spiritual  beastli- 
ness and  bondage, — a  common  idea  is  necessary; 
but  such  a  common  idea  only  a  religious  regenera- 
tion, together  with  a  social  regeneration,  can  give. 
Neither  religion  without  sociality,  nor  sociality 
without  religion,  but  only  a  religious  sociality  will 
save  Russia. 

And,  first  of  all,  a  religious-social  consciousness 
must  awaken  where  there  is  already  a  conscious 
sociality  and  an  unconscious  religiousness — in  the 
Russian  intelligentzia,  which  not  only  in  name  but 


THE  MENACE  OF  THE  MOB  83 

in  its  essence  must  become  the  intelligence,  the  in- 
tellectus  incarnate,  that  is — the  reason,  the  con- 
sciousness of  Russia.  Reason,  carried  out  to  the 
end,  arrives  at  the  idea  of  God.  The  intelligentzia, 
carried  out  to  its  end,  will  arrive  at  religion. 

This  seems  improbable.  But  not  in  vain  did  the 
movement  for  liberation  in  Russia  commence  with 
religion.  Not  in  vain  did  such  people  as  Novikov, 
Katazin,  and  Qiaadaev, — as  the  masons,  Martinists 
and  other  mystics  of  the  end  of  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury and  the  beginning  of  the  nineteenth, — find 
themselves  in  the  very  closest  inner  ties  with  the 
Decembrists.  This  was,  and  shall  be.  Russian 
sociality  was  baptized  with  a  religious  fire  in  its 
infancy,  and  the  same  fire  will  descend  upon  it  at 
the  time  of  its  coming  of  age,  will  burst  into  flame 
on  its  brow,  like  unto  the  "forked  tongue  of  flame" 
in  the  new  Descent  of  the  Holy  Ghost  upon  the 
living  spirit  of  Russia — the  Russian  intelligentzia. 
That  is  why,  perhaps,  it  has  found  itself  even  in 
the  total  darkness  of  religious  consciousness,  in  its 
"Godlessness,"  because  it  has  made  a  complete 
revolution  from  light  to  light,  from  the  setting  sun 
to  the  rising  sun,  from  the  First  Advent  to  the 
Second.  For  this  is  verily  the  path  not  only  of  the 
Russian  intelligentzia,  but  of  all  Russia — from 
Christ  Come  to  the  Coming  Christ. 


84  THE  MENACE  OF  THE  MOB 

And  when  this  shall  come  to  pass,  the  Russian 
intelligentzia  will  cease  to  be  the  intelligentzia, 
merely  the  intelligentzia, — human,  merely  human, 
reason;  then  it  shall  become  the  Mind  of  all  Hu- 
manity, the  Logos  of  Russia  as  a  member  of  a  uni- 
versal body  of  Christ;  a  new  true  Church,  no  longer 
a  temporary,  local,  Graeco-Russian,  but  an  eternal, 
universal  Church  of  the  Coming  Lord;  the  Church 
of  St.  Sophia  of  the  Great  Wisdom  of  God;  the 
Church  of  the  Trinity,  inseparable  and  infusible, 
— the  kingdom  not  only  of  the  Father  and  the  Son, 
but  of  the  Father,  the  Son,  and  the  Holy  Ghost. 

"Verily,  verily  this  shall  6e/" 

And  in  order  that  this  may  be,  it  is  necessary  to 
tear  apart  the  union  of  religion  with  reaction,  a 
union  scoffing  at  sacred  things;  it  is  necessary  that 
men  understand,  at  last,  the  meaning  of  this  say- 
ing, which  has  become  the  Flesh: 

"//  the  Son  therefore  shall  make  you  free,  ye 
shall  be  free  indeed."  (St.  John,  viii.  36.) 

On  to  liberty,  not  against  Christ,  but  with  Christ. 
Christ  shall  free  the  world — and  none  other  than 
Christ.  On  with  Christ — against  slavery,  the  bour- 
geoisie, and  the  rabble. 

Only  the  Coming  Christ  shall  conquer  the  Com- 
ing Mob. 


THE  BLOSSOMS  OF  BOURGEOISIE 


I 

MY  meetings  with  Jaures  and  France  were 
so  fleeting  that  perhaps  it  would  not  be 
worth  while  telling  about  them,  if  it 
were  not  that  there  is  something  of  the  symbolical 
therein  for  us  and  for  them;  for  us  Russians  and 
for  tlie  Frenchmen — for  Europeans  in  general,  per- 
haps. 

To  travel  is  not  sufficient — it  is  necessary  to  live 
in  Europe  to  understand  our  incommensurability 
with  them,  not  in  conceptions  merely,  or  feelings, — 
but  in  even  the  first  sensations,  in  that  physics  which 
is  the  foundation  of  all  metaphysics.  We  may  be- 
come acquainted,  even;  may  sympathize  with  each 
other;  but  sooner  or  later  a  moment  arrives  when 
they  cease  to  understand  us  and  look  upon  us  as 
the  inhabitants  of  another  planet.  I  say  this  with- 
out pride — on  the  contrary,  with  humility:  for  we 
must  learn  much  from  them,  seek  help  from  them 
in  many  things — there  is  no  doubt  of  that;  but 
whether  we  also  can  help  them  in  anything — that 
is  as  yet  doubtful.  At  any  rate,  at  present  they 
feel  no  need  of  us;  in  their  consciousness  or  un- 

87 


88  THE  MENACE  OF  THE  MOB 

consciousness  the  coming  destinies  of  Europe  are 
not  bound  up  with  our  destiny;  it  seems,  that  if 
Russia  were  to  go  down,  they  would  survive;  but  if 
Europe  disappear — we  perish. 

It  is  difficult,  scarcely  possible,  even,  to  define  in 
an  exact  formula  this  incommensurability,  but 
what  stares  one  in  the  face  is  this:  they  are  individ- 
ualists; we  are  collectivists.  Of  course,  in  a  cer- 
tain sense,  European  sociality  is  more  perfect  than 
the  Russian;  but  there  it  has  poured  into  firm, 
crystal-clear  governmental  forms;  our  Russian  soci- 
ality, however,  is  as  yet  unmined  ore,  or  metal 
boiling  in  the  furnace,  which  can  pour  into  what- 
ever forms  you  will,  beautiful  or  monstrous.  They 
are  a  river  in  its  channel;  we  are  a  river  at  flood- 
tide.  "The  rising  of  rivers  like  unto  seas" — that 
seems  to  have  been  said  especially  of  Russian  soci- 
ality. Perhaps  we  may  some  day  find  a  channel, 
but  at  present  we  have  not  found  it,  and  it  seems 
that  we  have  well-nigh  limitless  possibilities — good 
and  evil. 

Whether  our  strength  be  in  that,  or  our  weak- 
ness, we  yet  still  believe  in  a  universally  historical 
breaking  off,  in  that  sudden  overturn,  the  apoca- 
lypse of  "a  new  heaven  and  a  new  earth,"  which 
at  one  time  appeared  as  in  a  dream  to  European 
Sociality  also;  but  there  they  have  long  ceased  to 


THE  BLOSSOMS  OF  BOURGEOISIE  89 

believe  in  it,  and  now  gradation,  deliberativeness, 
and  uninterruptedness  of  development  are  for  them 
not  only  the  external  law  of  being,  but  the  inner 
law  of  the  spirit.  They  are  in  evolution,  we  in 
revolution.  They,  no  matter  how  much  they  riot, 
are  submissive;  we,  no  matter  how  much  we  sub- 
mit, are  rioting. 

But  the  chiefest  feature  of  our  incommensura- 
bility with  Europe  is  the  hardest  of  all  to  express 
— namely,  the  religious  feature.  Simply  to  say: 
we  have  religion,  they  have  not,  is  immodest;  yes, 
even  incorrect,  if  you  will;  for  if  religion  is  not 
already  with  us,  then  as  yet  there  is  none.  But  we 
all,  those  denying  and  those  affirming,  could,  in  a 
greater  or  lesser  degree  say  of  ourselves  what  one 
Russian  decadent  has  said:  "I  desire  that  which  is 
not  of  this  world."  Europeans  will  not  say  this; 
they,  at  any  rate,  do  want  that  which  is  of  this 
world.  They  are  in  contact  with  this  world;  we 
are  in  touch  with  "other  worlds  than  ours."  They, 
when  believing,  still  know;  we,  when  we  know,  still 
believe.  That  is  why,  even  in  the  most  frantic 
extremes  of  negation,  we  appear  mystics  still;  they, 
even  at  the  very  last  limits  of  affirmation,  appear 
skeptics  to  us. 

They  and  we  are  not  halves  of  one  whole,  tne 
two  poles  of  one  force.     If  we  have  any  preemi- 


90  THE  MENACE  OF  THE  MOB 

nence  before  them,  it  is  solely  in  that  we  have  begun 
to  ponder  this  question  before  them.  We  under- 
stood that  they  are  necessary  to  us;  they  cannot  con- 
ceive that  we  might  ever  be  of  need  to  them. 

They  are  "first,"  we  are  "last";  but  "whosoever 
.  .  .  will  be  the  chiefest,  shall  be  servant  of  all." 
It  would  seem  that  this  is  forgotten  by  them;  if 
we  recall  it,  all  shall  be  well  with  us. 


II 

With  Jaures  I  became  acquainted  through  An- 
drei Bielyi,  who  had  met  him  at  a  little  table 
(Thote  in  a  little  pension  on  the  quiet  Rue  Rane- 
lagh,  in  the  quiet  Parisian  suburb  of  Auteuil 
where  Bielyi  had  settled  down  in  my  neighbor- 
hood. It  was  just  there  that  Jaures  came  to  break- 
fast before  the  sessions  of  the  Chamber  of  Depu- 
ties. It  was  at  one  of  these  very  breakfasts  that 
they  fell  to  talking  of  Social  Democracy,  with 
which  our  poet,  it  is  known,  is  captivated,  con- 
necting "the  coming  art"  with  its  triumph.  I  be- 
lieve in  the  Socialism  of  Bielyi  as  greatly  as  in  his 
"Symphonies,"  these  magically  beautiful  and  ten- 
derly insane  "songs  without  words."  Be  that  as 
it  may,  only  that  superficial  sociability  of  the  New 
Athens  made  possible  a  conversation  such  as  the 


THE  BLOSSOMS  OF  BOURGEOISIE  91 

one  of  the  two  "comrades" — the  young  Russian 
symbolist  and  the  venerable  leader  of  French  Social 
Democracy. 

When  I  entered  the  idyllically  bourgeois  dining 
room  on  the  lower  floor  of  the  little  Ranelaghian 
pension,  where  the  air  seemed  to  be  growing  darker 
and  thicker  from  the  old,  old  smell  of  dishes,  I 
saw  at  the  far  end  of  the  empty  and  long  table 
Jaures  with  two  or  three  "comrades" — his  insep- 
arable retinue,  they  must  have  been, — and  with 
Andrei  Bielyi. 

A  stout  man  of  fifty  arose  to  meet  me;  slightly 
unwieldy  and  slow,  not  of  great  height,  with  the 
stiff  bristles  of  his  hair  and  beard  a  reddish  gray; 
the  skin  on  his  face  ruddy,  as  if  weather-beaten; 
with  a  prominently  projecting  chin,  and  simple 
and  kind  eyes  of  a  pale  blue.  Either  the  senior 
cashier  of  an  insurance  company,  or  a  teacher  of 
German  in  a  Russian  high-school.  Nothing  of 
lightness,  of  the  South,  of  the  Latin.  Teutonic 
ponderosity  and  solidity.  Not  well  cut  but 
strongly  sewn. 

Almost  immediately  after  we  had  settled  down, 
we  began  talking  of  the  Russian  Revolution. 

From  the  first  words  of  my  companion  in  con- 
versation I  sensed  his  curiosity  of  one  who  looks 
out  upon  a  shipwreck  from  the  safety  of  a  harbor. 


92  THE  MENACE  OF  THE  MOB 

Whether  Russia  free  herself,  or  remain  in  bondage, 
he,  Jaures,  would  be  neither  hot  nor  cold.  I  also 
felt  that  he  spoke  of  the  revolution  not  as  a  sea- 
man would  speak  of  the  sea,  but  as  a  geographer 
might. 

"At  the  present  time  in  Russia  the  Cadets  are 
the  only  party  which  has  a  feeling  of  the  real 
political  possibilities.  All  that  is  more  extreme 
than  that  is  insane.  Your  extremists  are  either 
fanatics  or  dreamers,  living  in  a  kingdom  of  chim- 
eras. One  cannot  but  wonder  at  their  heroism. 
But  the  wonder  is  mingled  with  a  feeling  of  sad- 
ness, and — forgive  me — of  vexation.  Everything 
with  you  Russians  is  an  impulse.  You  are  ready 
to  jump  out  of  the  window  and  break  your  necks, 
instead  of  descending  by  the  stairs.  You  can  die 
better  than  you  can  live.  .  .  ." 

"And  you  Europeans — can  both  die  and  live?" 
I  asked  with  an  involuntary  smile. 

"Live  well,  die  well,"  he  parried,  with  that  inno- 
cent and  amiable  self-satisfaction  which  disarms. 

A  few  months  back  I  had  heard  his  speech  at  a 
"protest  meeting"  at  the  Winter  Circus,  occasioned 
by  the  Bielostok  pogrom,  with  a  crowd  of  thousands 
of  Russian  revolutionaries  and  French  working- 
men.  He  spoke  of  human  rights,  of  the  great  cov- 
enants of  the  French  Revolution:  of  the  universal 


THE  BLOSSOMS  OF  BOURGEOISIE  93 

brotherhood  of  nations, — of  everything  that  at  one 
time  was  of  moment,  even  here  in  Europe,  but 
now  has  long  since  become  the  music  of  words. 
Jaures  is  an  inspired  orator.  For  an  hour  and  a 
half,  without  a  breathing  space,  he  shouted,  he 
roared,  he  bellowed,  he  thundered — a  veritable 
Zeus  the  Thunderer.  But  somehow  just  then  I 
recalled  the  saying  of  Grigorievitch  about  the  late 
Stasov:  "A  Vesuvius,  erupting  cotton."  I  can  eas- 
ily imagine  that  in  the  Chamber  this  florid,  inflated 
eloquence  explodes  like  a  punctured  bladder  under 
the  sharply  pointed  needles  of  Clemenceau. 

I  looked  my  neighbors  over;  French  workingraen 
— simple,  honest,  kindly  faces,  that  one  cannot  but 
love.  Attentive,  compassionate,  almost  reveren- 
tial; just  like  people  in  a  church  at  prayer,  listen- 
ing to  an  organ.  But  just  as  those  who  in  our  day 
pray  in  church  will  not  go  on  a  crusade,  so  these 
people  will  not  go  in  for  a  revolution.  The  com- 
mon face  of  the  crowd — the  face  of  the  bourgeois 
republic — is  that  of  imperturbable,  invincible  bour- 
geoisie: "we  desire  that  which  is  of  this  world;  a 
bit  at  a  time,  and  quiet-like,  we'll  build  up  a  king- 
dom of  heaven  on  earth — smooth  and  easy  does  it." 
Something  unshakeable,  absolute;  a  stronghold  of 
strongholds;  a  "present  eternity" — scarcely  any 
other  save  the  same  in  which  Hertzen  saw  a  portent 


94  THE  MENACE  OF  THE  MOB 

of  a  "European  China."  When  I  bethought  me 
of  the  police  agents  placed  near  the  doors  of  the 
hall,  I  felt  like  laughing.  Why  the  police?  To 
quiet  whom?  The  Russian  revolutionaries,  per- 
haps; but  even  they  had  become  weaker,  quieter, 
dissolved  in  this  crowd  like  acid  in  lye.  What 
revolution  can  there  be  here!  Water  was  never 
made  to  bum,  bourgeoisie  was  never  made  to  riot. 
Coming  out  of  the  meeting,  I  got  out  of  one 
meeting  into  another.  At  the  Place  de  Repub- 
lique,  on  occasion  of  a  holiday,  a  carnival  had  been 
arranged,  with  show-booths  and  carrousels  with 
music.  The  night  was  calm,  warm;  with  a  full 
moon  in  the  cloudless  sky.  But  in  the  blindingly 
white  electric  light,  like  the  light  of  day,  the  lumi- 
nary of  night  seemed  to  be  extinguished.  In  one 
of  the  carrousels,  instead  of  horses,  gigantic  pigs 
were  going  around;  the  little  tails  curled  into  little 
rings;  tlie  pink,  bare  bodies  seeming  alive;  the 
snouts  with  teeth  bared,  as  if  in  laughter;  and  with 
cunning  in  their  little  eyes,  as  if  they  knew  some- 
thing, but  did  not  want  to  tell.  The  music  was 
playing  a  military  march,  and  with  a  vertiginous 
speed  the  men,  women,  and  children  were  whirling 
around  astride  the  pigs.  They,  as  well  as  the  pigs, 
were  laughing.  Suddenly,  I  fancied  the  same 
thing  that  I  had  fancied  there,  at  the  meeting:  here 


THE  BLOSSOMS  OF  BOURGEOISIE  95 

was  some  limit  attained;  an  eternity  arrived,  calm 
and  smooth  waters,  God's  bounty  of  a  "Median 
Kingdom,"  of  a  "heaven  on  earth."  A  sadness,  as 
though  in  a  dream,  contracted  my  heart.  Some- 
thing eerie,  ominous,  of  the  apocalyptic,  was  in 
this  black  crowd  and  the  light  of  nocturnal  suns  ex- 
tinguishing the  light  of  the  moon,  and  in  the  rosily- 
naked,  laughing  swine.  "All  this  has  been  before, 
only  I  cannot  recall  when."     Or  will  it  be? 

"Yes,  you  can  die,  but  live  you  cannot,"  Jaures 
had  repeated  in  conclusion  of  our  conversation 
about  the  Russian  revolution. 

Then  we  spoke  of  French  Social  Democracy — I 
cannot  now  recall  what,  but  the  chief  impression 
which  remained  with  me  was  the  same  as  on  that 
evening  at  the  Bielostok  meeting:  of  a  socialism 
without  a  revolution — a  lion  without  claws;  a 
socialism  digested  in  the  ostrich-like  stomach  of 
bourgeoisie;  a  socialism  which  is  the  extinguished 
lava  of  a  volcano,  that  nurtures  the  plump  clusters 
of  Lacrima  Christi  in  the  earthly  paradise  of  bour- 
geoisie. 

Ill 

In  the  salon  of  a  certain  French  authoress  of 
Russian  origin,  Ivan  Strannik,  who  has  long  lived 


96  THE  MENACE  OF  THE  MOB 

in  Paris,  and  who,  it  would  seem,  is  the  only  one 
in  that  city  who  attempts  to  unite  oil  with  water — 
the  Russians  with  the  French, — I  became  acquainted 
with  Anatole  France.  The  amiable  hostess  had 
invited  the  famous  guest  especially  for  me.  But, 
through  unpardonable  Russian  barbarism,  I  was 
late  and  arrived  after  France. 

Do  you  recollect,  in  one  of  Chekhov's  stories, 
that  delicate  boy,  resembling  a  girl,  who  moved 
softly,  who  had  a  soft  voice,  soft,  flaxen  curls,  soft, 
tender  eyes,  a  soft,  little  velvet  jacket?  France  re- 
minds one  of  this  boy  of  Chekhov's.  As  soft  as 
soft  can  be,  caressingly  downy,  tenderly  velvety. 
When  you  gaze  at  him  for  long,  it  is  as  if  you  were 
passing  your  hand  over  silver-gray  velvet.  But 
the  impression  of  this  inward  softness  does  not 
exclude  an  external  distinctness,  a  firmness  of  coun- 
tenance as  exquisite  as  if  it  were  carved.  The 
silver-gray  head,  splendid  with  the  splendor  of 
age;  the  noble  profile,  that  might  have  been  struck 
off  on  an  ancient  Florentine  medal.  The  kind, 
old  courtiers,  of  the  kind,  old  King  Henry  the 
Fourth  would  be  like  that. 

With  me  were  my  friends,  also  Russians;  with 
France,  his  inseparable  friend  of  many  years,  a 
very  clever  woman  of  the  world  in  the  spirit  of  the 
eighteenth    century,    half    Jewess,    half    French. 


THE  BLOSSOMS  OF  BOURGEOISIE  97 

Their  mutual  salon  is  at  her  house.  France  is  mar- 
ried, but  no  one  knows  his  wife. 

The  hostess  tried  to  start  the  conversation  rolling 
about  Russian  literature,  about  Tolstoy  and  Dos- 
toievsky. But,  as  it  proved,  France  was  indifferent 
to  Tolstoy,  and  did  not  like  Dostoievsky.  Out  of 
politeness  he  did  not  say  this,  but  it  could  be  sur- 
mised that  Russian  mysticism  was  not  to  his,  a 
perfect  classic's,  liking,  and  seemed  almost  nothing 
else  but  "bad  taste."  The  conversation  did  not  get 
along  well.  In  vain  did  the  charming  hostess  throw 
little  rainbow-bridges  across  the  gulf  separating 
us;  we  could  not  step  upon  them,  and  fell  through. 

It  would  also  seem,  however,  that  France  does 
not  willingly  converse  with,  or  listen  to,  others;  but 
then,  he  loves  to  listen  to  himself.  And,  indeed, 
one  would  scarcely  have  the  courage  to  reproach 
him  for  it.  When  he  speaks,  one  listens  and  cannot 
have  his  fill,  as  if  in  his  throat  were  a  Stradivarius, 
or  that  nightingale  which,  in  Andersen's  fairy-tale, 
beguiled  the  death  throes  of  the  Chinese  emperor. 
Of  whatever  trifles  he  may  speak,  his  speech  is  a 
dainty  for  the  gods;  whatever  bitter  truths  he  may 
utter,  they,  from  his  lips,  are  full  of  ambrosial 
sweetness.  But  when  one  recalls  what  has  been 
said,  one  sees  that  it  is  almost  nothing,  over  almost 
nothing;  everything  melts  like  foam — but  is  it  not 


98  THE  MENACE  OF  THE  MOB 

that  foam  out  of  which  was  bom  the  goddess  of 
eternal  beauty? 

In  reference  to  the  collection  of  his  political 
speeches,  he  confessed  that  the  delivery  of  even 
the  shortest  speech  before  a  gathering  is  for  him 
a  veritable  torture;  that  several  days  before,  he 
already  worries,  loses  his  presence  of  mind,  and, 
stepping  upon  the  platform,  becomes  as  timid  as  a 
schoolboy. 

"Alas,  I  am  not  born  an  orator!"  he  concluded 
with  jocose  plaintiveness. 

"Why,  then,  do  you  torture  yourself?" 

"What  can  I  do?  One  must  serve  the  common 
good  in  some  way." 

"Socialism?"  asked  the  hostess,  winking  at  us. 

"Well,  yes,  of  course.  But  you,  it  seems,  do 
not  believe  in  my  socialism?" 

"Not  altogether." 

"Why?" 

"Why,  even  because  you  are  the  greatest  of  all 
skeptics  who  have  ever  been  in  this  world,  for  one 
thing,"  some  one  of  us  took  up  the  conversation. 
"For  how  can  one  unite  the  doubt  with  the  deed? 
How  do  anything,  not  believing  in  what  one  does?" 

"One  may  not  be  able  to  do;  but  one  may  play," 
retorted  France.  "The  struggle  of  the  political 
parties  is  for  me  a  titanic  game  of  chess.     But 


THE  BLOSSOMS  OF  BOURGEOISIE  99 

are  not  all  the  deeds  of  mankind  games?  The 
gods  play  with  us — in  that  lies  our  tragedy;  let  us, 
then,  play  with  the  gods — it  may  be  that  then  our 
tragedies  will  end  in  an  idyll.  He  who  has  lost 
faith  in  everything,  derives  the  innocent  ease  and 
delight  of  divine  games  from  everything.  'Oh, 
how  sweet  it  is  to  rest  upon  the  pillow  of  doubts!'  " 

The  infinite  charm  with  which  he  pronounced 
these  words  of  Montaigne's  I  shall  never  forget. 

Yes,  I  thought,  everything  in  play,  a  smile  for 
everything,  doubt  in  everything — that  is  the  final 
wisdom  of  bourgeoisie.  Contemplation  corre- 
sponds to  action,  France  corresponds  to  Jaures. 
Just  as  once  upon  a  time  the  political  insurrection 
transformed  itself  into  bourgeois  liberalism,  so 
now  the  social-economic  revolution  will  transform 
itself  into  bourgeois  socialism.  Evolution  is 
stronger  than  revolution,  the  calm  is  stronger  than 
the  storm:  herein  is  the  unconquered  truth  of  bour- 
geoisie— unconquerable,  it  may  even  be,  on  that 
plane  where  the  battle  is  being  waged.  Clemen- 
ceau  would  have  understood  France;  France  would 
have  reconciled  Clemenceau  with  Jaures. 

What  is  in  one,  that  also  is  in  all;  what  is  on  top, 
that  is  also  at  the  bottom.  There,  on  the  Place  de 
Republique,  in  the  black  crowd  and  the  pinkly- 
naked,  laughing  pigs  is  the  deep,  rich  soil,  the 


100  THE  MENACE  OF  THE  MOB 

unctuous  manure;  while  here  is  the  fragrant  blos- 
som, like  a  mystic  rose  of  bourgeoisie. 

Absolute  bourgeoisie  is  absolute  swinishness. 
After  all,  is  that  not  so?  All  the  golden  harvest 
of  culture — science,  art,  sociality, — has  it  not 
sprung  up  from  the  bourgeoisie  manure?  Is  there 
not  a  righteous,  wise,  kind, — holy — bourgeoisie? 
Who  has  not  cursed  it,  and  who  has  conquered  it? 

Only  too  frequently  now  in  Russia  is  European 
bourgeoisie  denied  by  us,  not  in  the  name  of  a 
new  nobility  and  a  new  culture,  but  in  the  name 
of  the  old  Russian  barbarism,  and  the  new  Russian 
hooliganism.  But  if  it  is  necessary  to  choose  the 
lesser  of  two  evils,  then,  if  you  will,  bourgeoisie  is 
better  than  hooliganism. 

At  times  it  seems  that  the  Russian  revolutionary 
sociality  has  given  the  oath  of  a  Hannibal,  to  con- 
quer or  perish  in  the  struggle  with  the  bourgeoisie 
of  the  cultured  South — having  no  power  given  from 
above  thereto.  It  is  time,  at  last,  to  think  of  that 
power,  to  understand  that  the  religious  shallowness 
of  bourgeoisie  can  be  conquered  only  through 
spiritual  nobility. 

We  believe  that  it  shall  alight  upon  Russian 
sociality,  and  if  then  Russia  proved  opposed  to 
Europe,  let  us  be  so.  We  are  opposed  to  Euro- 
peans; it  may  be  that  even  at  that  time  it  will  come 


THE  BLOSSOMS  OF  BOURGEOISIE        101 

to  pass,  that  the  last  shall  be  first,  not  that  they 
may  rear  up  above  all  others,  but  that  they  may 
serve  unto  all. 


WHEN  CHRIST  SHALL  RISE  AGAIN 


I 


' '  "^  N  this  land  of  ours,  rather  than  in  any  other, 
will  the  Glorious  Resurrection  of  Christ  be 
celebrated.  Is  that  a  dream?  But  why- 
does  this  dream  come  to  no  one  else  but  the  Rus- 
sian? What  does  it  mean,  in  reality,  that  the  holi- 
day itself  has  disappeared,  while  the  visible  signs 
of  it  are  so  plainly  borne  upon  the  face  of  our 
land:  that  the  words  'Christ  is  risen!'  are  spoken, 
along  with  the  kiss,  and  every  time  just  as  triumph- 
antly approaches  the  holy  midnight,  and  the  peal- 
ings  of  resounding  bells  ring  on  and  on  over  all 
the  earth,  as  though  they  were  awakening  us? 
Where  the  signs  are  borne  so  manifestly,  not  in 
vain  are  they  borne;  where  men  are  called,  they 
shall  awake." 

Thus  Gogol,  whose  birthday  falls  on  the  Holiday 
of  Glory: — can  it  be  in  order  that,  dead,  the  eter- 
nally living  one  may  tell  us  anew  that  which  he 
has  said  when  living,  heeded  of  none?  Can  it  be 
that  now  also  we  shall  not  heed? 

"No,  this  age  is  not  the  one  to  celebrate  the 

Glorious  Holiday  as  it  ought  to  be  celebrated," 

he  concludes. 

105 


106  THE  MENACE  OF  THE  MOB 

Why,  then,  not  celebrate  it?  Why,  indeed,  this 
holiday  which  does  not  fall  on  a  holiday?  Why 
has  it  vanished,  as  though  it  were  forever  eclipsed? 

Do  you  remember,  in  our  childhood  it  seemed  to 
us  that  on  this  day  the  sun  in  heaven  sparkled  as 
on  none  of  the  other  days  in  the  year?  Why,  then, 
does  it  grow  dim  and  tarnished,  as  though  the  light 
had  gone  out  of  our  eyes?  Why  do  "the  pealings 
of  resounding  bells"  ring  on  and  on  above  us  not 
with  holiday  pealing,  but  as  though  tolling?  The 
lips  pronounce:  "Christ  is  risen!"  the  lips  reply: 
"Verily  is  He  risen;"  but  the  heart  keeps  silence, 
— the  heart  keeps  silence:  is  it  because,  even 
though  He  be  risen.  He  is  still  not  risen  for  us? 

"I  know  that  people  who  commit  crimes  which 
they  call  executions  will  not  hear,  because  they  do 
not  want  to  hear  that  which  I  am  crying  out,  that 
which  I  am  beseeching  them:  but  still  I  will  not 
cease  to  cry  out,  to  beseech  always  about  the  one 
and  only  thing  till  the  last  minute  by  my  life,"  says 
Tolstoy,  in  his  recent  essay:  Christianity  and  Cap- 
ital Punishment. 

"Liev  Nikolaievitch  begs  to  write  you  that  Jukov- 
ski's  essay  on  capital  punishment  is  known  to  him, 
and  has  always  aroused  his  indignation. — Liev 
Nikolaievitch  thinks  that  you  have  done  well  in- 
deed in  recalling  to  the  memory  of  readers  this  old. 


WHEN  CHRIST  SHALL  RISE  AGAIN       107 

horrible  scoffing  at  sacred  things,"  writes  Tolstoy's 
secretary,  in  a  private  letter  in  reference  to  a  cer- 
tain essay  on  capital  punishment,  also  a  recent  one. 
And  at  the  end  of  the  letter  Tolstoy  himself  adds, 
in  an  aged,  weakening  hand: 

"During  the  last  few  days  I  feel  myself  very 
weak  from  renewed  ill-health — in  reality,  from 
age;  but  I  want  to  write  you  myself,  if  only  a  few 
words,  in  gratitude  for  your  essay,  and,  especially, 
for  your  fine  letter.  I  try,  as  much  as  I  can  and 
may,  to  struggle  with  this  evil  of  the  representation 
of  a  churchly  lie  in  place  of  the  truth  of  Chris- 
tianity, which  you  point  out;  but  I  think  that  liber- 
ation from  falsehood  is  reached  not  through  the 
pointing  out  of  the  falsehood  of  falsehood,  but 
through  a  full  adoption  of  truth — such  an  adoption 
wherein  truth  becomes  the  sole,  or  even  the  chief 
guide  of  life.  .  .  ." 

Alone,  amid  a  silence  as  of  the  grave,  he  is  cry- 
ing out,  his  voice  sinking  lower  and  lower,  as  if, 
in  reality,  "a  soaped  rope  had  been  thrown  around 
his  old  neck,"  He  is  crying  out,  and  will  cry  out 
to  the  last  minute  of  his  life,  repeating  always  the 
same  words,  stubbornly,  wearily  monotonously, 
hopelessly,  almost  senselessly,  almost  dully:  "This 
is  horrible,  horrible,  horrible!  .  .  .  Yes,  the  atti- 
tude of  Christian  humanity  at  present  is  horrible! 


108  THE  MENACE  OF  THE  MOB 

...  It  is  not  good  to  kill  one  another!  .  .  .'* 
"To  murder  for  murder,"  says  Dostoievsky,  "is 
a  punishment  immeasurably  greater  than  the  crime 
itself.  Murder  under  a  sentence  is  immeasurably 
more  horrible  than  murder  by  a  cut-throat ;  here  all 
final  hope,  with  which  it  is  ten  times  easier  to  die, 
is  taken  away  by  certainty;  here  is  a  sentence,  and 
precisely  in  that  there  is  certainly  no  escape  lies  all 
the  horrible  torture — and  there  is  no  torture  more 
powerful  in  all  the  world.  Who  has  said  that  the 
nature  of  man  is  capable  of  enduring  this  without 
insanity?  Wherefore  this  revilement, — hideous, 
unnecessary,  futile?  Of  this  torture  and  of  this 
horror  even  Christ  has  spoken.  No,  man  cannot 
be  treated  thus." 

"We  in  Russia  have  no  capital  punishment,"  re- 
joices Dostoievsky,  never  suspecting  what  mockery 
these  words  would  become  forty  years  after. 

"The  priest  was  reading  the  prayers  in  a  low 
voice.  Two  other  assistants  approached,  nimbly 
took  the  waistcoat  off  Tropman,  put  his  hands  be- 
hind his  back,  tied  them  together,  crosswise,  and 
wound  the  whole  body  up  with  straps.  .  .  .  Trop- 
man submissively  bent  his  head.  The  priest 
drawled  out  the  words  of  the  prayer.  ...  I  could 
not  take  my  gaze  off  the  slender,  youthful  neck. 
.  .  .  The  imagination  involuntarily  drew  a  trans- 


WHEN  CHRIST  SHALL  RISE  AGAIN       109 

versal  line  upon  it.  .  .  .  *Right  there,'  I  thouglit, 
'in  a  few  moments,  dismembering  the  vertebrae, 
cleaving  muscles  and  veins,  a  thirty  pound  axe  will 
go  through.  .  .  .'  I  saw  how  a  headsman  suddenly 
grew  up  on  the  left  side  of  the  guillotine  platform; 
I  saw  how  Tropman  made  his  way  up  the  steps. 
.  .  .  How  he  halted  at  the  top,  how  from  the  right 
and  left  two  men  pounced  upon  him,  just  like 
spiders  upon  a  fly,  how  he  suddenly  fell  down  head 
first,  and  how  his  heels  gave  a  kick.  .  .  .  But  here 
I  turned  away  and  began  to  wait,  while  the  ground 
started  quietly  floating  underfoot.  .  .  .  Ensued  a 
breathless  pause.  .  .  .  Then  something  roared 
dully  and  rolled  on — heaved  a  sigh.  ...  As  if  an 
enormous  beast  had  coughed.  .  .  .  Everything  be- 
came confused.  .  .  ."  ® 

Everything  has  become  confused,  has  grown  dark 
in  our  eyes  also.  The  Glorious  Resurrection  has 
grown  dark  as  well. 

That  is  why  the  holiday  does  not  fall  on  a  holi- 
day to  us.  We  can  not,  we  do  not  want  to,  we 
must  not,  celebrate  the  Resurrection  of  Him  Who 
Died,  where  the  putting  to  death  of  the  living  takes 
place.  Christ  can  not  arise  where  Christ  is  still 
being  crucified.  One  can  not  sing  "Christ  is 
risen!"  with  the  same  lips  which  clamor  "Crucify 

•TuRGENiEV,  Th«  Execution  of  Tropman  (1870). 


no  THE  MENACE  OF  THE  MOB 

Him!"  For  what  is  every  new  execution  among 
mankind  if  not  a  new  crucifixion  of  the  Son  of 
God?  Is  not  the  execution  of  Him  who  was  exe- 
cuted for  all  repeated  in  the  execution  of  all  the 
executed? 

"For  I  was  an  hungered,  and  ye  gave  me  no  meat: 
I  was  thirsty,  and  ye  gave  me  no  drink: 

"I  was  a  stranger,  and  ye  took  me  not  in;  naked, 
and  ye  clothed  me  not;  sick,  and  in  prison,  and  ye 
visited  me  not."  I  was  upon  the  headsman's  block, 
and  ye  knew  me  not. 

It  will  be  said  that  it  is  scoffing  at  sacred  things 
to  compare  Christ  with  evil-doers.  But  did  not  the 
people  shout  about  Him  also:  "Away  with  this 
man,  and  release  unto  us  Barabbas"?  Was  not 
He  also  crucified  between  two  thieves,  and  num- 
bered with  the  transgressors? 

What  is  the  cross  save  a  Roman  engine  of  exe- 
cution— the  same  as  the  French  guillotine,  the  Rus- 
sian gallows?  Wherefore  did  He  die  upon  the 
cross  if  not  to  make  the  engine  of  execution  the 
engine  of  salvation?  Through  Death  He  van- 
quished Death — does  it  not  mean  that  through  cap- 
ital punishment  of  himself  he  vanquished  capital 
punishment — annulled,  abolished,  destroyed  it  for 
all  eternity?  But  if  it  is  necessary  to  execute  after 
Him,  it  means  that  He  has  died  and  is  not  yet 


WHEN  CHRIST  SHALL  RISE  AGAIN       111 

risen;  it  means — that  the  cross  is  still  an  engine  of 
execution,  "the  accursed  wood,"  and  that  "accursed 
is  he  who  is  upon  the  wood." 

Where  a  gallows  rears  up,  the  cross  is  laid  low. 
In  place  of  the  Cross  of  God  is  the  Cross  of  Anti- 
Christ — the  gallows. 

From  this  very  cross  of  Anti-Christ  a  black 
shadow  has  stretched  over  all  Russia;  from  it  as 
well  has  the  sun  of  the  Resurrection  grown  dim. 
It  is  as  if  the  "pealings  of  resounding  bells"  are 
ringing  out:  "Christ  is  not  risen!" — and  our  heart 
answers:  "Verily  is  He  not  risen!"  "Easter  is 
radiant!"  chants  the  Church — but  to  us  it  seems 
that  rather  it  is  ruddy  with  blood. 

Shall  we  ask.  Wherefore  the  blessing  of  God  is 
not  over  us,  as  though  God  had  abjured  us,  and 
Holy  Russia  become  as  though  accursed?  Here 
is  the  cup  of  wrath  in  the  hand  of  the  Lord;  the 
wine  is  seething  within  it,  full  of  confusion,  and 
He  pours  out  of  it  for  us;  even  its  lees  we  shall 
press  out  and  drink.  Calamity  upon  calamity,  dis- 
grace upon  disgrace,  Tsushima  upon  Tsushima.^ 
It  seems  as  if  we  could  not  fall  any  lower,  but  still 
are  we  falling.  Wherefore?  Is  it  not  because 
we  are  so  used  to  the  sight  of  blood,  to  the  cry  of 

''  An  island  in  Korea  Strait ;  scene  of  a  naval  battle  disastrous 
to  the  Russians  during  the  Russo-Japanese  War.    Trans. 


112  THE  MENACE  OF  THE  MOB 

blood,  that  we  no  longer  see,  no  longer  hear,  this 
infamy  of  infamies?  .  .  . 

And  still  we  dare  talk  of  "Great  Russia,"  of  the 
"honest,  kind  face  of  our  nation," — dare  to  ask 
where  it  has  gone,  why  it  is  not  to  be  seen.  The 
headsman  has  bent  it  down  to  the  block — that  is 
why  it  is  not  to  be  seen. 

That  it  is  horrible  and  repulsive  to  eat  human 
flesh  ought  not  be  proven  to  man.  Just  so  it  ought 
not  be  proven  that  capital  punishment  is  horrible 
and  repulsive,  that  "murder  under  sentence  is  im- 
measurably more  horrible  than  murder  by  a  cut- 
throat." 

A  common  murder  destroys  the  religious  life  of 
the  murderer;  capital  punishment  destroys  the  re- 
ligious life  of  the  entire  nation.  Executing  one, 
we  are  executing  all;  killing  the  body  of  one,  we 
are  killing  the  soul  of  all.  Who,  then,  has  done 
this  thing  to  us?     Who  is  guilty? 

Let  us  not,  accusing  others,  justify  ourselves. 
There  is  none  righteous,  all  are  guilty, — both  I, 
who  write,  and  thou,  who  readest  this, — all  are 
guilty.  With  blood  is  bought  the  life  we  live,  with 
blood  is  permeated  the  air  we  breathe,  with  blood  is 
wetted  the  bread  we  eat,  with  blood  is  mixed  the 
water  we  drink.     We  know,  we  see  this;  others  are 


WHEN  CHRIST  SHALL  RISE  AGAIN       113 

blind,  or  wiH  not  see.  The  seeing  are  more  crim- 
inal; the  blind  are  unhappier. 

Nor  let  them  say  to  us  that  capital  punishment  is 
necessary  for  the  salvation  of  Russia.  If  it  were 
necessary,  let  us  say,  to  crucify  Christ  anew  in 
order  to  save  Russia,  would  we  crucify  Him? — 
At  this  day,  at  least, — at  this  day  we  believe  that 
we  would  not  crucify  Him. 

"Wherefore  this  holiday  which  has  lost  its  mean- 
ing?" asks  Gogol.  "Wherefore  does  it  come  anew 
to  summon  more  and  more  faintly  parted  people 
into  one  family,  and,  having  called  out  sadly,  de- 
parts like  one  unknov/n  and  a  stranger  to  all?  Is 
it  truly  unknown  and  a  stranger  to  all?  But  why, 
then,  have  people  survived  in  some  places,  to  whom 
it  seems  as  though  they  grew  brighter  on  this  day, 
and  who  celebrate  their  infancy,  that  infancy  whose 
celestial  kiss,  like  the  kiss  of  eternal  spring,  pours 
upon  the  soul?  .  .  .  Wherefore  is  all  this,  and  to 
what  end? — This:  that  some,  though  even  a  few, 
who  still  sense  the  breath  of  spring  in  this  holiday, 
may  suddenly  grow  exceedingly  pensive,  as  pensive 
as  an  angel  in  heaven  is  pensive,  and  that  they  may 
cry  out  with  a  heart-rending  cry,  and  fall  down  at 
the  feet  of  their  brethren,  beseeching  them  to 
snatch  out  this  one  day,  at  least,  out  of  the  rank  of 


114  THE  MENACE  OF  THE  MOB 

the  others;  for  one  day,  at  least,  to  embrace  and 
clasp  a  man  as  a  guilty  friend  embraces  a  gen- 
erous friend  who  has  forgiven  him  all.  .  .  .  Even 
to  wish  thus,  even  as  though  compelling  one's  self 
to  do  this,  to  seize  upon  this  as  a  man  drowning 
seizes  upon  a  board!  God  knows,  perhaps  for  this 
wish  alone  there  is  a  ladder  all  ready  to  be  thrown 
down  to  us  from  heaven  and  a  hand  stretched  out 
to  help  us  fly  up  on  it." 

Yea,  it  may  not  be  in  vain  that  upon  the  day  of 
the  Resurrection  the  risen  Gogol  newly,  as  of  yore, 
falls  at  our  feet  and  cries  out  with  a  heart-rending 
cry: 

"Even  to  wish  thus!" 

There  is  in  man  an  omnipotent  will,  there  is  a 
faith  in  miracles,  which  of  itself  is  already  a 
miracle.  Let  us  wish,  then,  with  such  a  will;  let 
us  believe  with  such  a  faith  in  the  miracle  of  the 
Resurrection  of  Christ,  in  the  miracle  of  a  resur- 
rection of  Russia. 

Let  us  not  implore:  "Annul  it!" — but  with 
Christ,  who  vanquished  death  through  death,  Who 
annulled  execution  through  execution,  let  us  annul 
capital  punishment  ourselves. 

And  then  only  shall  we  celebrate  the  Glorious 
Holiday;  then  only  will  the  sun  begin  to  sparkle  in 


WHEN  CHRIST  SHALL  RISE  AGAIN       115 

heaven,  and  the  pealings  of  resounding  bells  will 
ring  out:  Qirist  is  risen! 

And  all  Russia  will  answer: 

Verily  is  He  risen! 


THE    END 


A  SELECTED  LIST 
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tion of  titles  the  only  standard  that  has  been  kept  in  view 
is  that  the  work  in  question  must  be  literature,  and  more 
than  a  mere  ephemeral  production.  Through  the  Sea  Gull 
Library  many  a  work  of  permanent  value  may  be  made 
available  in  convenient  form  and  at  a  reasonable  price. 
Each  volume  contains  an  introduction.  Special  attention 
has  been  given  to  the  make-up  and  binding  of  the  vol- 
umes. Bound  in  gray  vellum  de  luxe  cloth  of  two  shades 
with  a  cover-design  by  Orland  Campbell.  Price,  per  vol- 
ume, $1.50. 


Francis  Jammes 

ROMANCE  OF  THE  RABBIT.  Authorized  translation 
from  the  French  by  Gladys  Edgerton.  In  this  work  hov- 
ers both  the  spirit  of  Virgil  and  of  the  gentle  St.  Francis 
of  Assisi.  Francis  Jammes  tells  of  Rabbit's  fears  and 
joys,  of  his  life  on  this  earth,  of  his  pilgrimage  to  para- 
dise with  St.  Francis  and  his  animal  companions,  and  of 
his  death. 


Jens  Peter  Jacobsen 

MOGENS  AND  OTHER  STORIES.  Translated  from  the 
Danish  by  Anna  Grabow.  The  author  is  known  as  one 
of  the  greatest  stylists  in  Scandinavian  literature.  The 
stories  in  the  present  volume  are  pastels  of  wonderful 
delicacy,  filled  with  the  keenest  psychological  observation. 


Other  Volumes  in  Preparation 


IT 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 
Los  Angeles 

This  book  is  DUE  on  the  last  date  stamped  below. 


■^18  1961 


URL 


FEB 


2-iq| 


FEB  5 


OCT  ^0  ^'56f 
INTERLIBRARY  LOitoS 


JAN  1  8  1967 

TferWf  EKS  FROM 

DATEOFKEfi(^-'- 


W70 


W4 


^fi^/ 


We/ 


^P  tECoroaBj  .^ 


11 


19SI 


MAY    41983 

REC'D  LD-URi 

JUL  12  1339 


Form  L9-42fM-8,'49(B5573)444 


THE  LEBRAHY 

UNIVERSf-T  OF  CAUPORNU 

LOS  ANGELES 


I  illliilllllilil 

3  1158  00857  3148  tj. 


UC  SOUTHERN  REGIONAL  LIBRARY 


FACILITY 


AA    000  379  996 


PG 


^'7 


SUPPLIED   BY 

THE  SEVEN  BOOKHU'  '^' 


